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Purchased  as  the  gift  of 

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Blisabetb  OLutber  Carp 

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The  Rossettis:  Dante  Gabriel  and  Christina. 

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G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  &  LONDON 


THE  ROSSETTIS 


RO 


4DA 
GA 


BY 


LLIS 


ILLVS 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  1855. 


THE 


ROSSETTIS 


DANTE 
GABRIEL, 


AND 

CHRISTINA 

<t 


BY 

ELISABETH 
LVTHER^ 


ILLVST^ATED 


LONDON 


COPYRIGHT,  1000 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Set  up  and  electrotyped,  October,  igoo. 
Reprinted,  January,   1901  ;  April,  tgoi. 


•Che  •fcnicfcctbochcr  preea,  ttcw 


PREFACE. 

IN  writing  of  Rossetti  I  have  written  of  a  man 
who  cannot  by  any  possibility  be  known 
through  one  biographer  alone.  Those  who 
came  in  contact  with  him  received  impressions  as 
various  as  strong,  and  he  has  been  to  a  singular 
extent  the  object  of  both  eulogy  and  detraction. 
In  his  letters  he  gives  a  presentation  of  himself 
undoubtedly  faithful  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  does 
not  go  very  far.  In  his  poems  and  in  his  pictures 
we  find  revelations  of  his  attitude  toward  life  which 
to  a  large  degree  supplement  the  letters,  and  in  the 
numerous  and  frequently  contradictory  opinions  ex- 
pressed by  his  companions  we  have  many  glimpses 
of  an  individuality  that  puzzled  them  despite  the 
frankness  with  which  it  was  manifested  to  them, 
or  perhaps  because  of  that  frankness. 

To  trace  the  true  Rossetti  by  these  clues  is  a  task 
that  could  successfully  be  accomplished  only  by  one 
who  could  reinforce  them  by  personal  knowledge, 
but  to  give  an  impression  in  which  the  striking 
peculiarities  of  Rossetti's  recorded  actions  shall  not 


iv  preface. 

take  precedence  over  his  essential  qualities  and  dis- 
cernible motives  ought  not  to  be  impossible  to  any- 
one with  the  already  published  material  at  hand, 
and  to  this  end  I  have  directed  my  efforts.  My 
general  estimate  of  his  character  and  temperament 
has  been  directly  influenced,  not  merely  by  this 
published  material,  but  to  a  considerable  degree  by 
a  correspondence  now  in  the  possession  of  Mr. 
Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr.,  of  Wilmington,  Delaware,  to 
whose  cordial  generosity  I  owe  the  opportunity  of 
thus  seeing  Rossetti  as  he  appeared  at  moments  of 
absolute  unreserve.  To  Mr.  Bancroft  I  am  also  in- 
debted for  the  invaluable  privilege  of  studying 
characteristic  examples  of  Rossetti 's  work  precisely 
as  he  would  have  wished  them  to  be  studied ;  in 
the  home,  that  is,  of  their  owner,  and  among  sur- 
roundings suited  to  them. 

In  Mr.  Bancroft's  house  hang  the  Lady  Lilith, 
the  Found,  the  Magdalen,  the  Water  Willow,  the 
Ruth  Herbert  study  in  gold  and  umber,  the  portrait 
in  coloured  chalks  of  Mr.  F.  R.  Leyland,  and  an 
early  study  of  still-life  belonging  to  the  years  pre- 
ceding Pre-Raphaelitism, —  a  collection  representa- 
tive of  almost  every  period  and  style  known  to 
Rossetti's  art.  By  the  courtesy  of  the  owner,  re- 
productions of  all  these  save  the  last  two,  have 
been  made  for  the  present  book  directly  from  the 
originals  which  in  two  cases  (the  Ruth  Herbert  and 
the  Magdalen)  have  never  before  been  reproduced. 
The  drawing  by  Frederick  Shields  of  Rossetti  after 


preface.  v 

death  is  also  reproduced  from  the  original  pencil 
sketch  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Bancroft  to  whom 
thanks  are  due  as  well  for  the  loan  of  many  valuable 
autotypes  by  which  comparatively  satisfactory  illus- 
trations of  Rossetti's  work  were  insured. 

Upon  these  contributions  the  greater  part  of  the 
interest  of  the  book  beyond  that  of  other  Rossetti 
books  depends.  In  taking  this  opportunity  for 
special  acknowledgment  of  the  debt,  I  realise  that 
no  acknowledgment  can  adequately  measure  the 
extent  to  which  my  work  has  thus  been  furthered. 

I  wish  also  to  express  my  obligation  to  Mr.  W. 
J.  Stillman  and  to  Mr.  P.  B.  Wight  for  their  full 
and  prompt  response  to  my  inquiries,  and  to  Mr. 
Russell  Sturgis  for  the  loan  of  The  Crayon  and  The 
New  Path. 

The  two  chapters  on  Christina  Rossetti  bear  to 
the  rest  of  the  text  much  the  proportion  borne, 
perhaps,  by  her  limited  life  and  product  to  her 
brother's  more  complicated  career.  In  laying  stress 
upon  elements  of  her  character  not  much  dwelt 
upon  by  previous  writers,  I  have  not,  I  trust,  over- 
stepped the  bounds  of  reasonable  inference,  and 
have  not  to  my  own  mind,  certainly,  lessened  the 
appeal  of  her  peculiar  charm  and  distinction. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — THE  FAMILY i 

II. — THE  PRE-RAPHAELITES,  ENGLISH  AND  AMER- 
ICAN    22 

III.— THE  GERM 53 

IV. — MlSS   SlDDAL .69 

V. — THE  MIDDLE  YEARS         ....      92 

VI. — TRANSLATIONS  AND  ORIGINAL  POEMS        .     116 

VII. — LIFE  AT  CHEYNE  WALK  AND  KELMSCOTT      141 

VIII. — PAINTING  FROM  1862  TO  1870         .        .163 

IX. — THE  CLOSING  YEARS        .        .        .        .186 

X. — CHARACTER  AND  TEMPERAMENT        .        .216 

XI. — CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI        .        .        .        .228 

XII.— CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI:  HER  POETRY.        .    251 


VII 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Page 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  1855     .         Frontispiece 
The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin    .        ...      32 

Rossetti's  first  important  painting. 

Carved  Stone  Ornaments 48 

From  the  National  Academy  of  Design. 

Found 76 

Photographed  from    the  original,    with  isochromatic  plate,   by 
courtesy  of  Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr. 

Beata  Beatrix 90 

The  Seed  of  David 96 

Centre  of  Triptych,  Llandaff  Cathedral. 

The  Damsel  of  the  San  Grael  ....  102 
Mrs.  Stillman  (Miss  Marie  Spartali)  .  .  106 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  1861  .  .  .  .108 

Dr.  Johnson  and  the  Methodist  Ladies  at  The 
Mitre no 

Algernon  Charles  Swinburne     .        .        .        .112 

From  water-colour  by  Rossetti. 

Study  for  (f  Dante's  Dream  "  Scarf  holder  .        .    124 

Mrs.  W.  J.  Stillman  (Miss  Spartali.) 

Study  for  Head  of  Dante 132 

Drawn  from  Mr.  IV.  J.  Stillman. 


x  miustrations. 

Rosa  Triplex 148 

National  Gallery,  London. 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 164 

From  a  photograph,  Cheyne  Walk,  1864. 

Lady  Lilith 168 

Photographed  from  original  by  courtesy  of  the  owner, 
Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr. 

Joan  of  Arc 772 

From  the  painting  in  possession  of  Mr.  S.  T.  Peters,  New  York. 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti 186 

By  G.  F.  Watts.     By  permission  of  Mr.  Frederick  Holly er. 

Fiammetta 194 

Painted  from  Mrs.  Stilltnan. 

Mary  Magdalen  with  the  Alabaster  Box    .        .     196 

Photographed  from  original  painting,  hitherto  unphotographed,  by 
courtesy  of  the  owner,  Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr. 

The  Loving  Cup 204 

Crayon. 

Sketch  of  Ruth  Herbert 2/0 

An  experiment  in  method.  The  high  lights  are  the 
bare  paper ;  the  colour  is  gold  powder  mixed  on 
the  palette  in  gum  ;  the  shadows  accentuated  in 
umber  ;  the  lips  slightly  reddened  ;  the  eyes  blue. 

Photographed  from  the  original,  -which  has  not  before  been  repro- 
duced, by  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr. 

Pencil  Drawing  by  Frederick  Shields  of  "  The 
Dead  Rossetti'  the  Morning  after  his 
Death  at  Birchington  .  .  .  .214 

Photographed  from  the  original  by  courtesy  of  the  owner, 
Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr. 

Rossetti  Fountain 216 

Designed  by  J.  P.  Seddon.     Bust  by  Ford  Madox  Brown. 


Illustrations.  xi 

Page 

Memorial  Fountain  to  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti    .  218 

Designed  by  John  P.  Seddon,  Architect. 
(Bust  of  Rossetti  by  Ford  Madox  Brown.) 

Proserpine         .        .        .        .        .        .        .  226 

Christina  G.  Rossetti 228 

Christina  Rossetti 230 

(Early  sketch  by  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. ) 
From  "New  Poems,"  etc.,  Macmillan  &  Co. 

Mrs.  and  Miss  Christina  Rossetti,  76*77     •        •  234 

Rossetti 's  Tombstone  in  Birchington  Churchyard,  246 

Title-page  to  "  The  Prince's  Progress  "      .        .  261 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  FAMILY. 

IN  the  case  of  the  Rossettis  the  biography  of  any 
one  individual  may  very  well  seem  "only  an 
episode  in  the  epic  of  the  family,"  so  striking  is 
the  character  of  each  generation  that  we  can  trace. 
The  name  itself  indicates  that  somewhere  among  the 
Delia  Guardias,  from  whom  the  family  are  descended, 
occurred  a  blond  branch  to  which  the  nickname  Ros- 
setti,  or  "  reddish  people,"  was  attached  and  clung. 
Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  himself  retained  a  suggestion 
of  this  ruddy  tinge  in  the  colour  of  his  hair,  which 
was  dark,  but  with  a  certain  auburn  brightness,  slow 
to  fade  out  of  it. 

Mr.  Knight  has  described  Dante  Gabriel's  grand- 
father, Nicola  Rossetti,  as  "connected  with  the  iron 
trade,"  but  Mr.  William  Rossetti  speaks  of  him  sim- 
ply as  a  blacksmith  of  very  moderate  means  and  a 
"somewhat  severe  and  irascible  nature,"  living  in 
the  little  Italian  town  of  Vasto  on  the  Adriatic  coast, 
about  eighteen  miles  from  Termoli.  In  this  artisan 
of  remote  Abruzzo  we  get  a  forewarning  of  the 


IRossettte. 

poignant  sensibility  that  caused  more  than  one  tur- 
bulent epoch  in  the  career  of  his  gifted  grandson. 
He  died,  in  fact,  from  wounded  feelings,  shortly  after 
the  French-republican  invasion  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Naples  in  1799,  when  the  French  put  some  affront 
upon  him.  "  I  believe,"  Mr.  William  Rossetti  writes, 
''they  gave  him  a  sound  beating  for  failing  or  neglect- 
ing to  furnish  required  provisions,  and,  being  unable 
to  stomach  this,  or  to  resent  it  as  he  would  have 
liked,  his  health  declined,  and  soon  he  was  no 
more." 

As  a  mortuary  inscription  to  him  reads,  he  ''poor 
and  honourable,  lovingly  sent  in  boyhood  to  their 
first  studies  his  sons,  carefully  nurtured  in  child- 
hood." 

Of  these  sons  there  were  four,  all  of  whom  earned 
some  degree  of  notice  in  verse-making,  and  three  of 
whom  became  more  or  less  distinguished,  Gabriele 
(father  of  Dante  Gabriel),  the  most  so,  showing  from 
his  youth  extraordinary  aptitude  in  writing,  in  draw- 
ing, and  in  music.  His  beautiful  tenor  voice  made 
his  companions  feel  that  he  was  putting  aside  an 
obvious  career  in  declining  to  train  himself  for  the 
operatic  stage.  His  fine  little  drawings  in  the  sepia 
which  he  himself  extracted  from  the  cuttlefish  seem 
to  his  son  William,  who  has  spent  his  life  among 
artists,  of  surpassing  merit  in  their  especial  line.  His 
writing  procured  him  in  his  own  country  and  in 
England  a  fame  not  lasting,  perhaps,  but  genuine. 

While  he  was  in  Italy  and  very  young  he  wrote 


jfamil\>.  3 

largely  in  verse,  and  the  following  little  poems  will 
show  something  of  the  quality  of  his  lyrical  gift, 
which  was  more  agreeable  than  impressive. 

AMORE  E  SPEMA. 

Gemelli  in  petto  a  noi 
Nascono  Amore  e  Speme, 
Vivono  sempre  insieme, 
Muoiono  insieme  ancor. 

Troppo  ne'  vezzi  tuoi, 
Troppo,  o  crudel,  ti  fidi, 
Se  ni  me  la  Speme  uccidi, 
Con  essa  uccidi  Amor. 

LOVE  AND  HOPE. 

Like  twins  in  our  bosom  are  born 
The  passions  of  Love  and  Hope, 
They  know  no  separate  scope, 
Together  they  live  and  die. 

Cruel  Lady,  beware,  to  scorn, 
Too  much  you  confide  in  your  charm, 
If  the  hope  in  my  heart  you  should  harm 
Love,  stricken,  beside  it  must  lie. 

LA  RIMEMBRANZA. 

Qui  la  vidi  ;  e  si  specchiava 
Su'  quest'  onda  si  tranquilla  : 
Qui  s'accorse  ch*  io  guardava, 
E  si  tinse  di  rossor  : 

Ah,  d'allor  che  se  mi  piacque 
Quella  languidor  pupilla, 
I  susurri  di  quest'  acque 

Par  che  parlino  d'amor.1 

1  See  article  on  "  The  Rossettis,"  by  William  Sharp,  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for 
1886. 


IRossettte. 

RECOLLECTION. 

Here  I  saw  her  bending  over, 
Mirrored  on  the  tranquil  stream  : 
Here  she  saw  me  look  and  love  her, 
And  a  ruddy  red  she  grew. 

Since,  that  lingering  glance  recalling, 
As  it  pleased  my  lover's  dream, 
I  hear  the  waters  speak  in  falling, 

Murmuring  Love — and  Love,  anew. 

His  poems  were  chiefly,  however,  of  a  patriotic 
order  and  stirring  to  the  popular  mind,  so  much  so 
that  they  brought  him  into  difficulties  with  the  king, 
against  whom  they  were  not  perhaps  directed  but  to 
whom  they  proved  extremely  offensive.  When,  for 
example,  Ferdinand  1.  granted  a  constitution  to  Naples 
in  1820,  Rossetti  hailed  the  dawn  of  the  fortunate 
day  with  an  ode  commencing  "Sei  pur  bella  cogli 
astri  sul  crine"  (Lovely  art  thou  with  stars  in  hair) 
which  charmed  the  Neapolitans.  As  the  brief  period 
of  independence  closed  in  1821  with  the  king's  aboli- 
tion of  the  constitution,  Rossetti,  then  occupying  the 
post  of  Curator  of  Ancient  Marbles  and  Bronzes  in  the 
Museum  of  Naples,  was  denounced  and  proscribed 
with  his  fellow  constitutionalists.  He  succeeded  by 
the  aid  of  Sir  Graham  Moore  in  getting  to  Malta, 
whence,  after  a  stay  of  two  years  and  a  half,  he  went 
to  England,  to  remain  there  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Shortly  after  his  arrival  in  England  he  became 
acquainted  with  the  Polidori  family,  the  same  to 
which  Byron's  erratic  physician  belonged,  and  other- 
wise notable  for  a  tendency  to  long  life  on  the  part 


Gbe  family  5 

of  its  members,  nine  of  them  attaining  an  average 
age  of  eighty-eight  years,  and  for  their  bookish  tastes 
and  aptitude  in  learning  languages. 

Falling  in  love  with  the  second  daughter,  Frances 
Mary  Lavinia,  Rossetti  married  her  in  1826.  By  the 
end  of  1830  they  had  four  children  ;  Maria  Francesca, 
born  on  the  iyth  of  February,  1827  ;  Gabriel  Charles 
Dante,  later  called  Dante  Gabriel,  on  the  1 2th  of  May, 
1828  ;  William  Michael,  on  the  25th  of  September, 
1829;  and  Christina  Georgina,  on  the  5th  of  De- 
cember, 1830. 

Both  Rossetti  and  his  wife  were  keenly  alive  to 
the  obligations  of  family  life,  and  these  children,  so 
nearly  of  an  age  that  the  four,  according  to  their 
mother's  notion,  were  no  more  trouble  than  one  to 
rear,  were  provided  with  all  the  comforts  necessary 
to  their  well-being.  A  good  physician  and  more 
books  than  usually  appear  in  households  of  small 
means  were  counted  among  the  necessities.  A  com- 
fortable scale  of  living  adapted  to  hearty  appetites 
was  maintained  through  all  variations  of  income,  and 
no  butcher  or  baker  or  candle-stick  maker,  says  Mr. 
William  Rossetti,  had  ever  a  claim  upon  them  for  six- 
pence unpaid.  An  honourable  dinginess  and  thread- 
bare aspect  were  much  preferable  to  debt,  and  there 
were  no  absurd  devices  for  "keeping  up  appear- 
ances," a  hearty  contentment  with  very  simple  ways 
of  living  characterising  parents  and  children. 

Teaching  was  the  most  available  means  of  liveli- 
hood for  one  in  Rossetti's  position,  and  from  1831 


IRossettis. 

until  1844  he  occupied  the  Italian  Professorship  in 
King's  College,  London.  He  also  wrote  from  a  curi- 
ous point  of  view  a  number  of  books  on  Dante  Ali- 
ghieri,  whose  "  darkness  of  the  exiled  years  "  he 
shared,  adding  to  it  the  pathetic  physical  darkness 
of  failing  sight,  but  never  wholly  losing  the  lightness 
of  heart  that  keeps  the  most  serious  Italian  as  a  lit- 
tle child  in  certain  ways  of  thinking  and  behaving. 
Lowell  quotes  from  his  Disamina  the  following  pas- 
sage that  shows,  despite  its  touch  of  grandiloquence, 
the  gallant  ideal  by  which  he  shaped  his  course  of 
passionate  study : 

"  My  Italy,  my  sweetest  Italy,  for  having  loved 
thee  too  much  I  have  lost  thee,  and  perhaps  —  ah  ! 
may  God  avert  the  omen !  But  more  proud  than 
sorrowful  for  an  evil  endured  for  thee  alone,  I  con- 
tinue to  consecrate  my  vigils  to  thee  alone — An  exile 
full  of  anguish,  perchance  availed  to  sublime  the 
more  in  thy  Alighieri  that  lofty  soul  which  was  a 
beautiful  gift  of  thy  smiling  sky  ;  and  an  exile  equally 
wearisome  and  undeserved  now  avails,  perhaps,  to 
sharpen  my  small  genius  so  that  it  may  penetrate 
into  what  he  left  written  for  thy  instruction  and  for 
his  glory." 

Lowell  adds  to  this  quotation  the  words, —  "  Ros- 
setti  is  himself  a  proof  that  a  noble  mind  need  not 
be  narrowed  by  misfortune.  His  Comment  (unhappily 
incomplete)  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  and  sug- 
gestive." 

National  sentiment  never  waned  or  flickered  with 


Gbe 

this  ardent-minded  exile.  Although  he  liked  much 
that  was  English, —  the  English  standard  of  morality, 
the  English  Constitution,  the  English  people,  Eng- 
lish coal-fires  and  English  beer, —  the  companions  of 
his  choice,  those  who  gathered  in  his  plain  rooms 
and  formed  the  circle  of  his  daily  interests,  were  his 
countrymen. 

"To  be  an  Italian,  was  a  passport  to  his  good- 
will," Mr.  William  Rossetti  declares,  "and  whether 
the  Italian  was  a  nobleman,  a  professional  gentleman, 
a  small  musical  hanger-on,  a  maccaroni  man,  or  a 
mere  waif  and  stray  churned  by  the  pitiless  sea  of 
expatriation,  he  equally  welcomed  him,  if  only  he 
were  an  honest  soul  and  not  a  spia  (spy).  Hardly 
an  organ-man  or  plaster-cast  vender  passed  our  street- 
door  without  being  interrogated  by  my  father,  '  Di 
che  paese  siete  ? '  ('  What  part  of  Italy  do  you  come 

from?')" 

Thus  the  Rossetti  children  were  brought  early 
into  contact  with  an  amazing  number  and  variety  of 
people, — musicians,  painters,  writers,  scholars,  ven- 
ders, teachers,  politicians  ;  some  of  them  singular 
figures  of  heroic  and  unquiet  aspect ;  not  all  of  them 
wholly  decent  and  reputable  ;  a  few  of  them,  as 
Mazzini  and  members  of  the  Bonaparte  family,  closely 
connected  with  events  that  were  to  pass  into  history. 

They  thronged  about  Rossetti,  chiefly,  it  would 
seem,  for  the  satisfaction  of  discussing  Italian  poli- 
tics and  denouncing  Louis  Philippe,  Rossetti  taking 
a  vehement  part  and  contributing  to  the  zest  of  the 


8  Ebe  IRossettie. 

occasion  by  reciting  from  his  own  patriotic  poems 
and  keeping  his  visitors  in  a  whirl  of  emotion.  No 
food  for  the  physical  man  save  "  a  cup  or  two  of  tea 
or  of  coffee  with  a  slice  of  bread  and  butter,"  either 
stimulated  or  interfered  with  intellectual  feasts,  and, 
in  fact,  a  larger  hospitality  would  have  been  dif- 
ficult, as  Rossetti's  declining  health  and  a  preference 
in  the  public  mind  for  German  in  place  of  Italian 
forced  the  family  to  "a  real  tussle  for  the  means  of 
subsistence  "  during  the  latter  part  of  his  life. 

The  four  children,  busying  themselves  with  their 
own  affairs,  nevertheless  took  in  much  of  the  ani- 
mated discourse  that  went  on  about  them  with  the 
result,  on  Dante  Gabriel's  part,  at  least,  of  a  hearty 
indifference  to  current  politics  as  he  grew  up,  and  a 
general  tendency  to  depart  from  his  father's  opinions 
regarding  subjects  on  which  they  both  spent  thought 
and  feeling.  How  much  unconscious  influence  was 
exerted  over  them  all  by  the  dramatic,  emotional  at- 
mosphere and  the  continual  exchange  of  vehement 
ideas,  cannot  in  the  least  be  estimated,  as  their 
minds  and  characters  developed  along  quite  inde- 
pendent lines  despite  the  underlying  family  likeness 
among  them. 

Where  they  were  English  and  not  Italian,  how- 
ever, they  drew  either  from  the  single  English  strain 
in  their  mother's  family,  or  were  shaped  by  their  as- 
sociations outside  their  homes.  On  their  father's 
tombstone  is  engraved  the  line  from  Jeremiah,  "  He 
shall  return  no  more  to  see  his  native  country,"  nor 


Jfamilp.    .  9 

did  he  ever  go  back  in  the  flesh,  but  he  did  all  that 
he  could  to  surround  himself  and  his  children  with 
the  very  breath  and  spirit  of  Italy. 

Their  mother  is  described  as  having  an  English 
rather  than  Italian  aspect,  but  Dante  Gabriel,  in 
drawing  her,  accentuated  a  few  strikingly  Italian 
characteristics  about  the  mouth  and  eyes.  She  was 
religious  in  temperament,  extremely  domestic,  fond 
of  reading,  simple  and  dignified  in  manner,  warm  in 
feeling,  steady  in  action  ;  a  fortress  of  defence  for  her 
children  and  for  her  husband,  against  the  difficulties 
that  assailed  them.  That  she  was  not  altogether 
blinded  by  her  affections  is  indicated  by  a  remark 
made  in  her  old  age  and  quoted  with  considerable 
relish  by  her  son  William,  to  whom  perhaps  it  ap- 
plied as  little  as  to  any  member  of  the  family.  "  I 
always  had  a  passion  for  intellect,"  she  said,  "and 
my  wish  was  that  my  husband  should  be  distin- 
guished for  intellect,  and  my  children  too.  I  have 
had  my  wish,  and  I  now  wish  that  there  were  a  little 
less  intellect  in  the  family  so  as  to  allow  for  a  little 
more  common  sense." 

To  her  children  she  was  always  more  or  less  a 
heroine,  the  object  of  their  unbounded  admiration 
as  of  their  love.  Christina  resembled  her  in  face, 
as  we  can  see  from  Dante  Gabriel's  portrait  ot  the 
mother  and  daughter  side  by  side,  the  one  in  ad- 
vanced age,  the  other  in  middle  life  but  looking  in 
certain  marked  respects  the  elder  of  the  two.  Of 
the  household  these  were  the  two  inseparable  ones, 


io  .  Gbe  IRoesettle.    . 

who  clung  to  each  other  in  sickness  and  in  health  ; 
but  that  there  was  not  in  any  case  any  barrier  of 
formality  between  mother  and  children  is  thoroughly 
attested  by  Dante  Gabriel's  letters,  in  which  a  great 
display  of  filial  tenderness  goes  with  unconstrained 
playfulness  of  address.  "  Good  Antique,"  he  writes, 
or  "  Dearest  Darling,"  or  "  I  shall  certainly  see  you 
in  an  evening  or  two,  you  dear  old  thing,"  or, 
"There  is  an  aunt  of  Miss  Boyd's  —  a  year  or  two 
younger  than  your  funny  old  self ! " 

Her  long,  careful  management  of  a  household  dif- 
ficult to  manage  under  the  best  of  circumstances 
seems  to  have  confirmed  in  her  habits  of  economy 
that  persevered  long  after  they  were  strictly  neces- 
sary. Dante  Gabriel  writes  to  a  friend  in  1873  that 
he  is  sending  his  "poor  old  Mummy"  a  sealskin 
cloak  as  a  present,  as  she  and  Christina  on  a  previous 
visit  "  had  only  a  small  rug  between  them."  "  My 
Mummy  travels,"  he  adds,  "with  a  trunk  all  over 
nails  which  she  has  had  ever  since  she  was  sixteen. 
It  is  covered  with  deerskin  and  is  very  curious.  It 
is  still  as  good  as  new  for  all  purposes,  and  has  on  it 
her  initials  before  she  was  married." 

Up  to  the  age  of  seven  or  eight  all  the  children 
got  what  teaching  they  had  from  their  mother,  and 
the  two  girls  were  educated  entirely  by  her.  Her 
methods  could  not  have  been  lax  or  ineffective,  as 
Dante  Gabriel,  anything  but  a  student  by  tempera- 
ment, could  read  with  ease,  write  legibly,  and  spell 
with  perfect  correctness  when  at  the  age  of  five  or 


ffamity.  " 

six  he  copied  out  his  first  poem,  "The  Slave,"  in 
which  the  blank  verse  also  was  correct  in  accent  and 
number  of  feet,  a  fact  that  does  not  seem  to  Mr. 
William  Rossetti  particularly  surprising,  since  he 
cannot  remember,  he  says,  any  time,  when,  know- 
ing what  a  verse  was,  they  did  not  also  know  and 
feel  what  a  correct  verse  was. 

The  prompt  command  of  these  "tools  of  the 
mind  "  quickly  resulted  with  all  the  children  in  fervent 
literary  and  artistic  interests.  Dante  Gabriel,  who 
"surged  through  the  pages  of  his  Shelley  like  a 
flame,"  at  sixteen,  was  "ramping"  through  Scott's 
poems  at  eight  or  nine,  and  before  he  was  seven  was 
illustrating  Henry  VI. ,  Hamlet  having  been  the  chief 
love  of  his  fifth  year,  with  Faust  to  follow  it.  Since 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  written  of  him  as  the  great 
protagonist  of  the  "Renascence  of  the  Spirit  of 
Wonder  in  poetry  and  art,"  it  is  interesting  to  observe 
his  delight  as  a  boy  in  works  dealing  with  mysteries 
beyond  human  experience.  His  taste  for  ghosts  was 
even  stronger  than  that  of  the  average  child,  and  he 
had  a  fine  discrimination  regarding  them.  He  always 
knew  the  difference,  his  brother  tells  us,  between 
the  ghost  in  Hamlet  and  a  ghost  by  Monk  Lewis. 
Brigands  pleased  him,  also,  and  murderers,  but  the 
romance  of  love  with  which  he  was  later  to  be  so 
much  occupied,  he  greeted  with  ecstasies  of  scorn. 
"  Often'  and  fatuously  did  they  laugh  "  over  Cole- 
ridge's "  Genevieve,"  the  poem  which  Dante  Gabriel 
marked  in  one  of  his  latest  years  with  the  word 


12  Gbe  IRoseettis. 

"  Perfection,"  and  for  which  he  made  in  his  twenty- 
first  year  an  exquisite  illustration  in  pen  and  ink, 
sitting  up  the  whole  of  an  August  night  to  perfect  it. 
Christina  Rossetti,  who,  "  compared  with  the  rest 
of  the  family,  read  very  little,"  also  knew  her  Shakes- 
peare and  Scott  at  an  early  age,  and  became  acquainted 
with  Keats  when  she  was  nine.  Maria,  whose  dis- 
position was  studious,  liked  history  and  Grecian 
mythology  and  had  an  "Iliad  fit"  at  twelve  or 
thirteen. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  with  these  tastes 
the  Rossettis  were  not  game-loving  or  athletic  child- 
ren. Dante  Gabriel  in  particular  is  described  as  hav- 
ing no  ambition  whatever  in  these  directions.  Neither 
did  he  take  any  delight  whatever  in  the  arts  of  handi- 
craft, with  all  his  heart  disliking  whatever  required 
mechanical  skill  or  dexterity.  Not  even  Polidori's 
printing-press  alluringly  situated  in  a  summer-house 
tempted  him  to  investigation  of  its  too  practical  pro- 
blems, and  he  tried  few  amusements  that  required 
practice  and  exercise.  He  once  joined  Ford  Madox 
Brown  for  a  time  in  rifle-shooting  at  a  target,  and  by 
a  happy  chance  hit  the  bull's-eye  with  his  tirst  shot, 
raising  false  hopes  in  the  breast  of  his  instructor. 
After  that,  however,  he  never  even  hit  the  target.  Mr. 
Stephens  declares  that  to  call  him  a  rower  is  certainly 
an  error,  since  when  he  was  in  his  boat  he  proposed 
to  throw  over  one  of  the  stretchers  because  it  was 
in  his  way.  He  never  cared  to  swim,  nor  could 
he  ride. 


Gbe  jTamil^  13 


This  strain  of  incapacity  accounts  in  a  measure 
for  his  inability  to  master  the  technical  side  of  his 
own  beautiful  art.  To  draw  consummately  demands, 
as  a  basis  at  least,  something  of  the  constructive 
power  essential  to  a  bridge-builder,  and  as  much 
persistent  discipline  as  the  average  boy  is  willing  to 
give  to  his  athletics  !  Rossetti  had  little  constructive 
power,  and  could  not  discipline  himself  in  work  or 
play.  If  he  had  not  been  marvellously  gifted  with 
the  faculty  of  visualising  his  ideas,  and  moulding 
them  clumsily  but  powerfully  into  form  upon  the 
flat  canvas,  he  must  have  been  lost  as  a  painter. 

In  place  of  active  sports  and  lively  games,  the 
Rossetti  children  put  rhyming,  painting,  and  acting, 
showing  no  great  precocity  in  any  one  of  these 
directions,  but  a  general  quickness  of  interest  and 
alertness  of  mind.  They  were  much  like  the  de- 
lightful children  of  whom  Stevenson  writes  out  of 
his  full  knowledge  of  his  own  quaint  childhood. 
They  walked  in  a  vain  show  and  among  mists  and 
rainbows,  "  passionate  after  dreams  and  unconcerned 
about  realities."  Like  Stevenson,  too,  they  knew 
"  Skeltery  "  and  were  incessantly  buying  sheets  of 
"  a  penny  plain  and  two-pence  coloured,"  preferring 
the  plain  for  the  joy  of  colouring  the  engraved  figures 
with  true  Pre-Raphaelite  hues,  bright  red,  blue,  and 
yellow.  The  drawings  made  by  Dante  Gabriel  in 
his  noble  attempt  to  illustrate  the  Iliad  are  con- 
demned by  his  brother  as  "  not  in  any  tolerable  de- 
gree good  or  even  promising,"  although  the  two 


H  Gbe  1Ro00ett!0. 

examples  reproduced  in  Marillier's  splendid  volume 
are  unquestionably  above  the  attainment  of  the  aver- 
age child  of  a  dozen  years.  There  are,  however, 
no  stories  of  youthful  accomplishment  to  vie  with 
the  prodigious  feats  of  Millais's  infancy. 

One  impish  trick  recorded  of  Dante  Gabriel  de- 
serves mention  not  at  all  for  its  cleverness,  which  is 
somewhat  wanting,  but  because  it  marks  the  first 
showing  of  that  irrepressible  instinct  for  "play-act- 
ing "  which  was  with  him  at  his  birth,  and  which  did 
not  leave  him  till  his  death  —  which  in  fact  made  the 
terrible  last  months  of  his  life  more  pitiable  and  grue- 
some than  anything  else  could  have  done.  When 
he  was  about  five  years  old  he  had  a  habit  of  walk- 
ing in  the  street  in  an  attitude  of  deformity  until  he 
attained  his  desired  result,  an  expression  of  sympa- 
thy on  the  part  of  a  passer-by.  Then  he  would 
straighten  up,  and  run  away  laughing.  How  similar 
to  this  picture  of  him  is  that  given  by  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  after  his  death  in  an  effort  to  give  a  true  im- 
pression of  the  cheerful  side  of  his  character,  which 
this  friend  thought  had  been  too  much  ignored. 
"  The  truth  is,"  he  writes,  "  that  there  was  in  him  a 
sort  of  wilfulness  of  the  spoilt  child,  unreasonable, 
and  to  me  unaccountable,  which  impelled  him,  ex- 
cept when  alone  with  me,  to  assume  that  gloom  and 
that  air  of  the  misanthrope  which  deceived  even  his 
brother.  And  the  only  excuse  —  if  indeed  there  be 
one  —  for  the  distressing  asperities  which  disfigure 
my  old  friend  Bell  Scott's  mention  of  him  in  his 


jfamity.  15 

autobiography  is  to  be  found  in  this  fantastic  whim, 
so  painful  to  many  a  friend  and  so  cruelly  unjust  to 
himself." 

The  picture  of  the  household  as  a  whole,  gained 
from  the  very  few  writers  who  remember  its  earlier 
years,  is  that  of  a  strongly  united  little  group,  with 
almost  complete  similarity  of  tastes,  living  a  little 
apart  from  the  world  about  them  and  sufficient  to 
each  other  for  entertainment  and  companionship, 
developing  each  one  rather  slowly  to  a  certain  point, 
and  then  abruptly  attaining  great  maturity  of  ex- 
pression and  thought,  and  taking  life  as  it  came  with 
directness  and  a  certain  kind  of  simplicity  not  incom- 
patible with  great  complexity  of  nature.  In  Dante 
Gabriel,  in  particular,  this  simplicity  was  one  of  the 
dominant  enlightening  characteristics  by  which  many 
most  wayward  manifestations  might  be  explained, 
and  through  which  a  great  confusion  of  result  was 
frequently  arrived  at.  It  is  also  the  stamp  by  which 
Christina's  poetry  is  known  from  all  other  poetry 
which  in  other  respects  resembles  hers. 

Christina  and  Dante  Gabriel  are  naturally  the 
figures  that  stand  out  most  plainly  from  the  family 
group,  and  different  as  they  came  to  be,  the  two 
little  creatures  look  much  alike  in  the  long  per- 
spective of  their  childhood.  Both  made  illustrative 
drawings,  Christina's  of  little  merit ;  both  wrote 
poetry  as  a  kind  of  game,  Christina  showing  the 
greater  cleverness  in  this  perhaps  ;  both  had  hearts 
overflowing  with  affectionate  interest  in  animals  of 


1 6  £be  iRossettis. 

every  conceivable  description,  from  dormice  and 
hedgehogs  at  home  to  the  armadillos,  sloths,  tigers, 
and  elephants,  of  the  Zoological  Gardens  ;  both  had, 
it  would  seem,  rather  irritable  tempers  and  not  very 
firm  health,  and  both  were  desultory  in  their  habits 
of  study. 

Maria  is  said  to  have  epitomised  the  temperaments 
of  all  four  children,  declaring  that  she  herself  had  the 
good  sense,  William  the  good  nature,  Gabriel  the 
good  heart,  and  Christina  the  bad  temper  of  their 
beloved  father  and  mother ! l 

By  the  beginning  of  1837  the  two  boys  were  both 
in  school  ;  first  at  a  little  day-school  kept  by  a  Rev. 
Mr.  Paul,  and  later  at  the  King's  College  Day-School, 
where  Dante  Gabriel  stayed  five  and  William  Ros- 
setti  eight  years.  This  first  experience  of  rubbing 
against  the  outside  world  after  the  close  seclusion  of 
their  home  life  was  not  entirely  happy.  We  learn 
from  William  Rossetti  that  Dante  Gabriel  was  usually 
pretty  near  the  head  of  his  classes,  that  when  he  left 
school  he  could  write  an  excellent  hand,  was  up  to 
Sallust,  Ovid,  and  Virgil,  in  Latin,  knew  something 
of  Greek  which  he  promptly  forgot,  understood 
French  well  enough  to  plunge  into  French  novels, 
and  had  "some  inkling  on  subjects  of  history,  geo- 
graphy, etc.,"  but  learned  " nothing  whatever"  of 
"anything  even  distantly  tending  to  science,"  such 
as  algebra  and  geometry.  This  was  not  a  poor 
equipment  for  a  boy  of  fourteen  ;  but  from  his  broth- 

1  See   Mackenzie    Bell's    Christina   Rossetti :    a  Biographical  and   Critical 
Study. 


Jfamilp.  17 

er's  dark  allusions  both  boys  suffered  much  moral 
deterioration  through  the  wickedness  of  their  school- 
fellows, and  constant  exposure  to  an  atmosphere 
that  "  reeked  too  perceptibly  of  unveracity,  slipperi- 
ness,  and  shirking."  Dante  Gabriel's  own  picture  of 
his  schoolboy  aspect  is  painted  in  the  gloomiest 
colours.  He  was  destitute  of  personal  courage, 
shrank  from  the  amusements  of  his  fellows,  was 
afraid  of  their  quarrels,  and  although  not  wholly 
without  generous  impulses,  was  in  the  main  selfish 
of  nature  and  reclusive  in  habit  of  life.  William  Ros- 
setti  substitutes  "self-willed  "  for  selfish,  and  denies 
that  his  brother  was  a  coward,  admitting  that  he 
was  not  fond  of  "that  loutish  horse-play  and  that 
scrambling  pugnacity  which  are  so  eminently  dis- 
tinctive of  the  British  stripling. "  Certainly  he  did  not 
at  the  King's  College  School,  or  any  other,  gain  the 
exact  habits,  the  "instruments  of  true  thought," 
which  Bagehot  calls  the  "  very  keys  and  openings, 
the  exclusive  access  "  to  the  knowledge  beloved  of 
youth.  He  diligently  nursed  his  fancies  and  fed  his 
sympathies,  and  turned  a  cold  shoulder  to  discipline 
in  all  its  forms.  He  knew  this  foe  under  every  con- 
ceivable disguise  and  never  was  cajoled  into  show- 
ing a  friendliness  for  it  that  he  was  far  from  feeling. 

In  1842 J  he  left  the  King's  College  School  (William 
remaining  three  years  longer),  to  commence  regu- 
larly hi-s  art  education.  The  drawing  academy 
known  as  "  Sass's  "  and  kept  by  F.  S.  Cary,  the  son 

1  Mr.  William  Rossetti  now  thinks  1841. 


1 8  Gbe  IRossettts. 

of  the  translator  of  Dante,  was  the  natural  place  to 
choose  at  that  time,  and  Dante  Gabriel  spent  there 
about  four  years  in  studying  the  antique  and  the 
human  skeleton,  and  learning  perhaps  as  little  as  one 
so  greatly  endowed  could  learn  of  these  preliminaries 
to  the  making  of  pictures.  By  his  fellow  student, 
J.  A.  Vintner,  he  is  remembered  as  wayward  and 
brusque,  affectionate,  generous,  boisterous,  unap- 
proachable, and  generally  contradictory.  "A  bare 
throat,  a  falling,  ill-kept  collar,  boots  not  over  famil- 
iar with  brushes,  black  and  well-worn  habiliments, 
including  not  the  ordinary  jacket  of  the  period,  but  a 
loose  dress-coat  which  had  once  been  new — these 
were  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  a  mood  which 
cared  even  less  for  appearances  than  the  art-student 
of  those  days  was  accustomed  to  care,  which  un- 
doubtedly was  little  enough."  With  this  unpromis- 
ing exterior  he  had,  when  addressed,  a  manner  that 
was  courteous,  gentle,  winsome,  and  marked  by 
cultivation  and  the  air  of  good  breeding. 

From  Gary's  he  went  in  1846  to  the  Antique 
School  of  the  Royal  Academy,  where  he  stayed  a 
couple  of  years  without  making  marked  progress. 
Six  years  of  drawing  from  the  antique  with  anatomi- 
cal study  might  have  been  expected  to  ground  him 
in  the  fundamental  principles  of  an  orthodox  art 
education  in  England,  and  to  prepare  him  for  the 
long  course  of  drawing  from  the  nude  which  must 
have  followed  had  he  been  a  Frenchman.  And,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  while  he  did  not  learn  anything  with 


19 

academic  thoroughness  he  did  acquire  during  these 
ineffectual,  these  dabbling  years,  a  command  of  his 
pencil  that  made  him  able  to  produce  in  black  and 
white  some  very  beautiful  drawings.  When  his 
pencil  sketch  of  his  grandfather  was  exhibited  at  the 
New  Gallery  in  1897,  its  true  and  delicate  modelling 
claimed  the  attention  of  critics  among  the  rich  and 
sumptuous  designs  of  his  later  years  ;  and  the  little 
illustration  of  Coleridge's  "  Genevieve  "  is  pure  dis- 
tinction and  rhythmic  charm  of  line. 

The  most  obvious  achievements  of  these  years, 
however,  were  gained  at  random  in  the  fascinating 
by-paths  of  learning.  His  attendance  at  the  Academy 
was  irregular,  and  his  truant  hours  were  many  of 
them  spent  in  the  Old  Reading-room  of  the  British 
Museum,  "  hunting  up  volumes  of  the  most  ancient 
Italian  lyrists,  and  also  volumes  of  modern  British 
poets,  and  maybe  of  French  as  well."  The  poems 
he  liked  he  translated.  Dante,  who  during  his  child- 
hood had  been  a  thin  literary  ghost  haunting  his 
father's  presence,  became  when  he  was  fifteen  or 
sixteen  years  old  a  new  poet,  young,  and  passion- 
ately human,  tumultuously  in  love,  and  master  of 
a  lovely  language,  the  friendly,  eager,  grave,  and 
rapturous  guide  to  a  New  Life  which  the  boy  set 
about  interpreting  as  no  one  else  has  ever  inter- 
preted it.  More  than  a  dozen  years  later,  when 
painting  had  gained  the  upper  hand,  these  early 
translations,  exquisitely  perfected,  were  put  into 
print,  preserving  the  pungency  and  grace  of 


20  abe  1Ro00ettte. 

Rossetti's  best  time,  of  the  most  impressionable  of  all 
his  impressionable  years.  At  this  time,  too,  he 
"  read  up  all  manner  of  old  romaunts  to  pitch  upon 
stunning  words  for  poetry,"  showing  early  and 
with  the  most  matter  of  fact  nonchalance  his  ap- 
preciation of  the  value  of  the  right  vocabulary, 
"faithful  to  the  colouring  of  his  own  spirit." 

A  modern  guide,  also,  he  now  discovered,  Brown- 
ing, whose  poems  were  an  endless  delight,  and  from 
whom  he  gave  endless  recitations.  The  "  involved 
style"  of  the  author  of  "Paracelsus"  and  "  Sor- 
dello  "  made  no  especial  tax  on  the  understanding 
of  one  to  whom  the  eccentricities  of  the  English 
tongue  were  already  familiar.  He  found  in  the 
poems  "passion,  observation,  aspiration,  medieval- 
ism, the  dramatic  perception  of  character,  act,  and 
incident "  that  made  them  the  very  theatre  of  his 
own  confident,  absorbing  dreams. 

One  more  name  must  be  added  to  make  the  trio 
controlling  the  direction  of  his  thought  before  the 
end  of  his  second  decade.  William  Blake,  jeering 
at  Correggio,  Titian,  Rubens,  and  other  masters  of 
the  past,  and  producing  designs  of  mystical  signifi- 
cance and  profound  imagination,  brought  "balsam 
to  Rossetti's  soul  and  grist  to  his  mill."  In  1847  he 
borrowed  ten  shillings  of  his  brother  to  seize  an 
opportunity  for  purchasing  one  of  Blake's  MS.  books 
at  the  museum,  and  the  work  of  the  two  boys  in 
copying  out  the  tangled  poetry  and  prose  in  the 
precious  volume  was  the  basis  of  all  their  after 


family 


21 


interest  in  Blake  literature,  and  resulted  finally,  on 
William  Rossetti's  part,  in  the  Aldine  edition  of 
Blake's  work,  as  yet  without  a  rival. 

About  this  central  current  of  inspiration  Rossetti's 
life  played  somewhat  wantonly.  The  theatre,  good 
or  bad,  was  a  joy  to  him  ;  novels,  trashy  and  great, 
were  "  enormously  admired  "  by  him  ;  artists  of 
mediocre  talent  fixed  his  attention  ;  he  was  fond  of 
joking,  of  loud  laughter,  and,  above  all,  fond  of  ad- 
miring, and  of  expressing  his  admiration.  Thus  he 
gravitated  toward  the  point  of  departure  from  any- 
thing resembling  conventional  methods  of  training, 
until  in  1848  he  broke  the  bonds  that  could  not  hold 
him  so  lightly  as  to  be  endurable. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  PRE-RAPHAELITES,  ENGLISH  AND 
AMERICAN. 

PRE-RAPHAELITISM  has  suffered  from  the 
tendency  of  human  nature  to  define  a  thing, 
"  in  order,"  as  someone  has  said,  "  to  save 
the  trouble  of  understanding  it."  Through  various 
and  contradictory  definitions  it  has  been  held  re- 
sponsible for  many  artistic  sins  and  also  credited 
with  an  amount  of  virtue  it  hardly  could  claim. 
At  once  the  most  discerning  and  least  didactic  state- 
ment of  it  is  given  by  a  painter  who  appreciated  its 
"  dramatic  program  "  without  falling  under  its  spell. 
"  Pre-Raphaelitisrn,"  he  says,  "  is  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood,  of  course."  And  this  Brotherhood 
was  what  ?  Little  more  in  reality  than  a  band  of  a 
few  enthusiastic  young  men  — ("  Thank  God  that 
they  are  young,"  said  Ruskin) — who  had  eager 
minds,  interesting  ideas  to  express,  and  a  great  deter- 
mination, not  by  any  means  upheld  by  their  technical 
skill,  to  express  them.  Their  name,  somewhat  but 
not  altogether  misleading,  led  to  an  uproar  against 


22 


pre^lRapbaelites.  23 

them  which  their  pictures  would  never,  perhaps, 
have  raised  ;  this  uproar,  amounting  to  persecution, 
aroused  the  abounding  sympathy  of  Ruskin,  and  his 
defence  produced  a  great  reaction  in  their  favour, 
with  the  curious  result  that  by  the  time  the  little 
organisation  had  wearied  of  its  own  existence  and 
dissolved,  it  was  pretty  well  fixed  in  the  public  mind 
as  a  revolutionary  influence,  a  "school." 

The  part  played  by  Rossetti  in  all  this  was  a 
peculiar  one.  Because  he  had  so  little  in  common 
with  most  of  his  companions  ;  because  his  independ- 
ent genius  was  so  little  dominated,  or  even  guided, 
by  any  hard-and-fast  principles  he  might  profess,  or 
which  might  be  professed  for  him  ;  because  his  con- 
tribution to  the  Brotherhood  was  not  chiefly  the 
veracity  in  workmanship,  the  conscientiousness  of 
detail,  the  morality  of  motive,  demanded  by  them, 
but  a  deep  vein  of  imaginative  romance  inherited  or 
derived  from  the  great  dreamers  of  mediaeval  Italy, 
and  a  lovely  sense  of  colour  blooming  with  exotic 
brilliancy  in  the  foggy  atmosphere  of  London, — for 
these  very  reasons,  by  which  he  is  set  apart  from 
and  above  the  Brotherhood,  he  has  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  its  chief  exponent  and  representative,  and, 
after  fifty  years,  is  still  spoken  of  as  Rossetti,  the 
leader  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites.  His  admirers  can 
smile  with  perfect  good-humour  over  the  claims  of 
Millais's  filial  biographer,  who  quotes  his  father's 
assertion,  made,  it  must  be  said,  with  a  tinge  of 
superior  virtue  in  the  tone,  that  "  Rossetti's  art  was 


24  £be  IRossettls. 

not  Pre-Raphaelite  at  all — highly  imaginative  and 
original  and  not  without  elements  of  beauty,"  but 
"  not  Nature."  Not  nature  indeed,  but  temperament 
and  the  supreme  expression  of  a  sentiment  quite 
unknown  in  England  or  in  any  other  one  spot  where 
brushes  were  at  that  time  touching  canvas  ;  a  senti- 
ment belonging  to  two  ages  and  two  countries 
united  in  one  man,  and  that  man  singularly  himself 
and  unsubordinated  to  influences  of  either  lower  or 
higher  kind. 

His  interest  in  the  little  Brotherhood  was  ardent 
enough,  however,  and  is  easily  traced.  The  history 
of  the  brief  interval  between  his  connection  with  it 
and  his  previous  study  in  the  Academy  shows  him 
beating  about  in  unrestrained  impatience  to  be  free 
from  the  direction  of  others,  although  he  was  not 
then  or  later  indifferent  to  the  opinions  of  those 
about  him,  or  disinclined  to  learn  from  them  as 
much  as  he  could  without  interfering  with  his  own 
pronounced  tendencies  and  predilections. 

By  the  end  of  1847,  it  was  perfectly  plain  to  him 
that  his  path  in  art  lay  in  some  other  direction  than 
through  the  successive  gates  of  the  Royal  Academy. 
Two  more  years  at  the  Antique  before  he  could  hope 
to  enter  the  painting  school  was  a  prospect  that  ap- 
palled him.  He  was  eager  to  venture  on  colour,  but 
quite  unequal  to  the  hazard.  "  Every  time  I  attempt 
to  express  my  ideas  in  colour,"  he  wrote  to  his  Aunt 
Charlotte  Polidori,  "I  find  myself  baffled,  not  by 
want  of  ability  — I  feel  this  and  why  should  I  not 


25 

say  it? — but  by  ignorance  of  certain  apparently 
insignificant  technicalities,  which  with  the  guidance 
of  an  experienced  artist  might  soon  be  acquired."  The 
means  to  this  end  were  provided  by  Miss  Polidori, 
who  from  her  regular  income  as  a  governess  was 
alone  of  all  the  family  capable  of  producing  "com- 
fortable extra  sums  "  to  further  the  desires  of  her 
relatives.  Rossetti  had  two  men  in  view  who  "by 
some  unaccountable  accident "  had  not  obtained 
public  renown,  but  either  of  whom  he  would  trust 
with  his  education  as  a  painter.  Ford  Madox  Brown 
was  one,  and  to  him  he  wrote  the  first  of  the  series 
of  extravagantly  appreciative  and  sincere  letters 
which,  like  milestones,  marked  his  admirations  to 
the  end  of  his  life. 

From  various  causes,  —  ill-success  in  his  work, 
domestic  trouble,  and  poverty,  —  Brown's  temper  in 
his  earlier  years  was  saturnine,  and  there  is  a  tradi- 
tion that  when  he  received  from  this  unknown  cor- 
respondent a  rhapsody  on  the  pictures  so  sadly 
neglected  by  the  public,  coupled  with  a  hope  that  he 
"might  possibly  admit  pupils  to  profit  by  his  in- 
valuable assistance,"  the  applicant  feeling  convinced 
in  that  case  of  having  "  some  chance  in  the  Art,"  he 
provided  himself  with  a  stout  stick  and  sallied  forth 
to  call  on  the  "  Gabriel  C.  Rossetti  "  who  signed  the 
letter,  prepared  to  cudgel  him  for  an  impudent  joke. 
Rossetti's  sincerity  of  manner,  however,  literally 
disarmed  him,  and  he  left  the  house  "a  friend  for 
that  day  in  1848,  and  a  friend  for  life." 


26  Gbe  IRossettis. 

His  advice  to  Rossetti  was  less  radical  than  the 
latter  had  hoped  it  would  be.  He  had  himself  been 
well  equipped  in  several  art  schools  for  more  than  one 
branch  of  his  profession,  and  rigid  and  long-continued 
attention  to  those  insignificant  technicalities  which 
Rossetti  had  hoped  soon  to  acquire  seemed  to  him 
an  essential  of  learning  to  paint.  He  recommended 
his  pupil  to  do  some  copying,  and  to  paint  still-life 
("  pickle-jars  ")  with  him  during  the  day,  and  in  the 
evening  to  attend  an  academy  where  the  students 
drew  from  the  model.  This  advice  Rossetti  received 
with  respectful  gratitude  and  followed  for  a  time. 
One  of  the  bottle  studies  which  he  painted,  obviously 
in  a  spirit  of  dutiful  acquiescence,  is  owned  by  Mr. 
Bancroft  of  Wilmington,  Delaware,  and  shows  how 
closely  his  first  steps  in  colour  followed  the  path  of 
his  master.  The  actual  hues  of  the  red  and  blue 
bottles  and  the  red  curtain  are  singularly  like  those 
of  Brown's  Romeo  and  Juliet  which  hangs  in  the 
same  house,  though  less  pure  and  bright  and  wholly 
without  glow  or  beauty,  while  a  reclining  figure, 
substituted  at  a  later  period  for  the  anatomical  horse 
at  first  forming  a  part  of  the  inspiring  composition, 
betrays,  despite  the  attempt  to  subdue  it  to  its  sur- 
roundings, a  liveliness  and  fusion  of  colour  that  are 
Rossetti's  own  and  will  not  down. 

In  a  few  months,  not  having  found  what  he 
sought,  he  was  mapping  out  a  new  course  that 
shortly  led  him  to  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood. 
He  saw  in  the  Spring  Exhibition  at  the  Royal  Academy 


ipre^lRapbaelites.  27 

Holman  Hunt's  painting,  from  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes, 
and,  thinking  it  the  finest  picture  of  the  year,  went  up 
to  him  and  boisterously  told  him  as  much.  Later  he 
called  upon  Hunt  at  his  studio,  and  grumbled  to  him 
about  the  pickle-jars,  and  by  the  2oth  of  August, 
1848,  the  two  young  men  were  sharing  a  studio 
together  at  No.  7  Cleveland  Street,  Rossetti  at  last  in 
an  atmosphere  that  suited  him,  combining  still-life 
with  figure  painting  in  a  composition  of  his  own,  at 
Hunt's  suggestion  and  under  his  criticism. 

Thirty-eight  years  later  Hunt  recalled  the  vivid 
incidents  of  this  companionship  with  a  care  as  minute 
as  any  he  spent  upon  his  early  drawings.  Whatever 
Rossetti  was  in  after  life,  in  those  days  he  exercised 
an  influence  anything  but  depressing  upon  his  friends. 
His  eager  mind,  at  once  receptive  and  narrow,  his 
spontaneity  and  expansiveness,  made  him  a  comrade 
of  enlivening  power  and  charm.  In  the  Cleveland 
Street  studio  talk  was  as  much  a  part  of  the  day's 
program  as  painting.  Hunt  was  twenty-one,  Ros- 
setti a  year  younger.  Both  had  convictions  upon 
art  and  opinions  upon  all  other  subjects  that  had 
swum  within  their  ken.  Though  they  are  now 
thought  of  as  having  been  at  that  time  inspired  by 
the  same  ideals  and  subject  to  the  same  predilections, 
their  discussions  indicate  significant  diversities.  Geo- 
logy and  astronomy  seemed  to  Hunt  full  of  poetic  sug- 
gestions ;  but,  for  Rossetti,  "What  could  it  matter 
whether  the  earth  moved  round  the  sun  or  the  sun 
travelled  about  the  earth  !  "  Natural  science  and  the 


28  Gbe  IRossettis, 

development  of  human  progress,  which  forcibly 
appealed  to  Hunt,  seemed  to  Rossetti  equally  unin- 
teresting. Hunt  had  already  attained  his  firm  faith  in 
chronological  detail  as  an  important  element  in  Script- 
ural and  historical  painting.  Rossetti,  on  the  con- 
trary, felt  with  most  other  romantic  painters  that 
taking  thought  for  accuracy  in  costume  and  accuracy 
in  type  killed  the  poetic  nature  of  the  design.  With 
Hunt,  even  then,  design  was  illustration  of  events,  a 
catalogue  raisonnee;  with  Rossetti,  then  as  ever 
after,  design  was,  above  all,  the  expression  of  emotion 
and  thought.  Both  painters,  however,  dwelt  lovingly 
upon  the  chances  of  a  radiant  future  when  worthy 
pupils  were  to  disseminate  their  cherished  ideas, 
and  cause  art  to  take  its  proper  place  in  modern  life. 
Hunt  ventured  to  express  doubt  of  the  British  public's 
pliability.  But  Rossetti  confidently  swept  aside  this 
idle  fear:  "Were  there  not  hundreds  of  young 
aristocrats  and  millionaires  growing  up  who  would 
be  only  too  glad  to  get  due  direction  how  to  make 
the  country  glorious  as  Greece  and  Italy  had 
been  ?  "  When  we  think  of  Rossetti's  influence 
upon  Morris,  "  setting  the  author  of  The  Earthly 
Paradise,"  according  to  Harry  Quilter,  "on  the 
road  to  that  decoration  which  has  changed  the 
look  of  half  the  houses  in  London  and  substituted 
art  for  ugliness  all  over  the  kingdom  "  ;  when  we 
think  of  his  influence  on  Burne-Jones,  and  of  the 
rivalry  with  Whistler  in  the  possession  of  beautiful 
bric-a-brac,  that  raised  its  price  in  every  shop  in 


pre^lRapbaelitee.  29 

London,  and  made  it  coveted,  we  realise  that  he 
carried  his  extravagant  prophecy  more  than  a  little 
way  toward  fulfilment. 

In  the  many  and  long  intervals  of  his  work,  Ros- 
setti  was  fond  of  "  chanting,  in  a  voice  rich  and  full 
of  passion,"  pages  upon  pages  of  poetry,  Italian  or 
English,  ancient  or  modern,  and  usually,  as  Brown- 
ing's Sordello,  not  popular  or  well-known.  But  when 
he  had  once  sat  down,  Hunt  says,  and  was  "im- 
mersed in  the  effort  to  express  his  purpose,  and  the 
difficulties  had  to  be  wrestled  with,  his  tongue  was 
hushed  ;  he  remained  fixed  and  inattentive  to  all 
that  went  on  about  him  ;  he  rocked  himself  to  and 
fro,  and  at  times  he  moaned  lowly,  or  hummed  for  a 
brief  minute  as  if  telling  off  some  idea.  All  this 
while  he  peered  intently  before  him,  looking  hungry 
and  eager,  and  passing  by  in  his  regard  any  who 
came  before  him  as  if  not  seen  at  all.  Then  he 
would  often  get  up  and  walk  out  of  the  room  with- 
out saying  a  word.  Years  afterward  when  he  became 
stout,  and  men  with  a  good  deal  of  reason  found  a 
resemblance  in  him  to  the  bust  of  Shakespeare  at 
Stratford-upon-Avon,  and  still  later  when  he  had 
outgrown  this  resemblance,  it  seemed  to  me  that  it 
was  in  these  early  days  only  that  the  soul  within  had 
been  truly  seen  in  his  face.  In  these  early  days,  with 
all  his  headstrongness  and  a  certain  want  of  con- 
sideration, his  life  within  was  untainted  to  an  exem- 
plary degree,  and  he  worthily  rejoiced  in  the  poetic 
atmosphere  of  the  sacred  and  spiritual  dreams  that 


30  £be  IRossettis. 

then  encircled  him,  however  some  of  his  noisy 
demonstrations  might  hinder  this  from  being  re- 
cognised by  a  hasty  judgment."  That  those  who 
knew  him  in  later  years  only,  had  also  a  glimpse  ot 
this  spiritual  beauty  in  his  face  through  its  many 
indications  of  different  qualities,  and  found  "the 
visionary  gleam,"  the  "glory  and  the  dream  "  not 
entirely  passed  away  from  it,  is  most  evident  from 
Watts-Dunton's  description  of  him  as  the  painter 
D'Arcy  in  his  novel  Aylwin.  "If  it  [the  face  of 
D'Arcy]  was  not  beautiful  in  detail,"  he  says,  "  it  was 
illuminated  by  an  expression  that  gave  a  unity  of 
beauty  to  the  whole.  And  what  was  the  expression  ? 
I  can  only  describe  it  by  saying  that  it  was  the  ex- 
pression of  genius  ;  and  it  had  that  imperious  mag- 
netism which  I  had  never  before  seen  in  any  face  save 
thatofSinfi  Lovell." 

The  studio  in  which  Rossetti  and  Hunt  alternately 
talked  and  worked  is  described  by  Mr.  Stephens  as  a 
dismal  place,  with  one  big  eastern  window  giving 
upon  a  most  unlovely  view  of  monotonous  heaps  of 
damp,  orange-coloured  piles  of  timber,  and  with 
walls  painted  dark  maroon  made  dingier  by  stains  of 
dust  and  smoke.  The  picture  with  which  Rossetti 
struggled  gallantly  in  the  gaunt  large  room,  against 
the  crafts  and  assaults  of  technical  deficiency,  was 
The  Girlhood,  of  Mary  Virgin,  "  a  little  flat  and  grey 
and  rather  thin  in  painting,"  but  exquisite  in  its 
charm  of  pure  and  quiet  suggestion,  and  marvellous 
as  the  work  of  a  boy  without  usual  training  or  usual 


Gbe  ipre-IRapbelites.  31 

self-control.  There  is  no  hint  in  its  austerity  of  the 
plumb-line  rigidity  common  to  the  work  of  students, 
nor  are  there  traces  of  stippling  smoothness  or  bravado 
of  careless  brushwork.  In  place  of  these  we  find  the 
restraint  of  scholarly  intuitions,  chaste  youthful  re- 
verence for  delicate  and  dreamy  sentiment,  and  firm 
if  not  robust  modelling.  The  whole  picture  suggests 
what  Mr.  LaFarge  has  called  "  respectful  methods — 
the  methods  of  religious  life,"  and  the  symbolism 
with  which  it  is  charged  indicates  the  esoteric,  the 
mystical  mind  already  at  work  beneath  the  young 
man's  careless,  defiant,  blustering  exterior.  The 
figures  are  those  of  Mary  for  which  Christina  sat,  St. 
Anna,  which  was  a  faithful  portrait  of  Rossetti's 
mother,  and  St.  Joachim,  painted  from  a  man  em- 
ployed in  the  Rossetti  family  to  black  boots  and  do 
other  such  odds  and  ends  of  service. 

The  accessories  are  a  three-flowered  lily,  tended 
by  a  quaint,  ascetic  young  angel ;  six  large  volumes 
on  the  floor,  inscribed  with  the  names  of  the  cardinal 
virtues  ;  by  Mary's  side  some  long  sharp  thorns,  em- 
blematical of  the  future  passion ;  a  vine  trained  by 
Joachim  into  the  pattern  of  a  cross,  a  dove  sur- 
rounded by  a  gilded  halo,  a  lamp  of  antique  shape,  a 
vase  holding  a  rose,  and  a  glimpse  of  Galilean  land- 
scape. For  the  frame,  Rossetti  had  printed  a  slip  of 
gold  paper  with  two  sonnets  explanatory  of  the  pic- 
ture :  the  one  beginning,  "This  is  that  Blessed  Mary 
pre-elect,"  and  the  other,  "These  are  the  symbols  ; 
on  that  cloth  of  red  I'  the  centre  is  the  Tripoint." 


32  Gbe  IRossettte. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  Rossetti  thus  at  the  very 
beginning,  with  his  first  exhibited  picture,  planning 
for  it  a  frame  that  should  be  harmonious  with  it,  and 
a  sonnet  that  should  explain  it,  as  he  did  fifteen 
years  later  for  The  Lady  Lilith,  and  Venus  Verti- 
cordia,  and  twenty  years  later  for  Penelope,  and 
nearly  thirty  years  later  for  Astarte  Syriaca.  It  was 
this  habit  of  his  that  gave  rise  to  Whistler's  story  of 
finding  him  once  quite  eager  over  a  projected  pict- 
ure with  which  some  weeks  later  he  was  progress- 
ing "finely," — the  frame  having  been  made  for  the 
still  blank  canvas.  Later  still,  while  the  canvas  was 
yet  pristine,  all  was  reported  as  going  well,  the  son- 
net having  been  written.  Whistler's  suggestion  at 
this  point  was  that  the  sonnet  should  be  put  in  the 
frame,  and  the  work  considered  over. 

To  get  sufficient  command  over  himself  and  his 
instruments  for  this  so  nearly  adequate  expression 
of  his  idea  demanded  from  Rossetti  an  effort  that 
shows  him  characteristically  as  strong  in  will  as 
many  events  of  his  life  show  him  weak.  "  It  is  the 
more  to  his  honour,"  Mr.  Stephens  says,  that 
"  while  his  facility  in  verse  was  rare,  brilliant,  and 
great,  he  had  at  this  period  to  undergo  agonies  of 
toil,  and  passionately,  so  to  say,  to  tear  himself  to 
pieces  while  he  became  a  painter  according  to  the 
lofty  standards  of  Madox  Brown,  Holman  Hunt,  and 
John  Millais.  These,  as  well  as  other  friends  of  his, 
witnessed  the  greatness  of  the  struggle  and  hon- 
oured accordingly  the  victor  of  that  strenuous 


The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin. 

Rossetti's  first  important  painting. 


dbe  Ipre^lRapbaelites.  33 


self-contest."  It  was  a  contest  he  was  destined  to 
repeat  in  many  fields  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

While  painting  The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin, 
Rossetti  saw  much  of  Millais,  whom  he  had  met 
before  at  the  Royal  Academy  and  in  the  little  Cyclo- 
graphic  Society,  and  the  triple  friendship  on  which 
the  Brotherhood  rested  began.  Millais  was  the 
type,  well-known  to  art-schools,  of  ''prize"  stu- 
dent. A  year  younger  than  Rossetti,  he  was  al- 
ready hung  with  medals,  and  an  exhibitor  of  some 
importance.  He  was  intimate  with  Hunt,  who  saw 
in  him  "  a  generous,  quick  enthusiasm  "  and  a  spirit 
on  fire  with  eagerness  to  seize  whatever  he  saw  to 
be  good.  Although  he  liked  Rossetti  at  first,  the  two 
were  as  fitted  to  mingle  as  oil  and  water,  and  Millais 
records  in  later  years  that  "  D.  G.  Rossetti  was  a 
queer  fellow,  and  impossible  as  a  boon  companion  — 
so  dogmatic  and  so  irritable  when  opposed." 

Millais  and  Hunt  had  already  made  a  compact 
"to  adopt  a  style  of  absolute  independence  as  to 
art-dogma  and  convention."  When  Rossetti  heard 
of  it  he  became  an  easy  and  enthusiastic  convert, 
and  suggested  the  idea  of  a  Brotherhood.  Thomas 
Woolner,  the  sculptor  ;  James  Collinson,  a  painter, 
and  pronounced  by  Rossetti  "a  stunner,"  on  the 
strength  of  one  interesting  picture  ;  Frederic  George 
Stephens,  an  art  critic,  and  apparently  the  only  one 
of  the  number  who  had  much  acquaintance  with 
the  actual  pre-Raphaelite  art,  and  William  Rossetti 
were  enrolled  as  members.  At  Millais's  house  in 


34  £be  IRossettis. 

Cower  Street  they  were  shown  what  Ruskin  calls 
Lasinio's  "  execrable  engravings"  from  the  frescos 
of  Gozzoli,  Orcagna,  and  others  in  the  Campo  Santo 
at  Pisa,  as  examples  of  the  sort  of  art-spirit  with 
which  they  should  sympathise,  and  the  crusade  of 
the  P.-R.B.'s  began. 

Their  code,  as  Mr.  William  Rossetti  records  it, 
was  simple  and  inoffensive  enough.  They  were:  (i) 
to  have  genuine  ideas  to  express  ;  (2)  to  study  nature 
attentively,  so  as  to  know  how  to  express  them  ;  (3) 
to  sympathise  with  what  is  direct  and  serious  and 
heartfelt  in  previous  art,  to  the  exclusion  of  what  is 
conventional  and  self-parading  and  learned  by  rote  ; 
(4)  most  indispensable  of  all,  they  were  to  produce 
thoroughly  good  pictures  and  statues. 

They  held  monthly  meetings  and  daily  meetings, 
for  that  matter,  to  discuss  questions  of  art  and  litera- 
ture, and,  as  far  as  can  be  discovered,  bore  themselves 
with  self-respect.  Their  habits,  together  and  sepa- 
rately, were  those  of  wholesome,  well-bred,  seri- 
ous-minded young  men.  Millais's  biographer  calls 
attention  to  the  fact  that  at  a  period  when,  as  Thack- 
eray has  shown  us,  "  all  Bohemia  was  saturated  with 
tobacco,  spirits,  and  quaint  oaths,"  the  Brotherhood 
neither  smoked,  drank,  nor  swore.  None  of  the 
prejudice  with  which  they  were  presently  to  be 
regarded  could  be  laid  therefore  to  any  waywardness 
or  wantonness  of  character. 

Nor  was  their  chosen  principle  of  naturalism  en- 
tirely new  or  entirely  without  honour  in  England. 


35 

William  Dyce,  whose  sympathy  with  the  early  Flor- 
entines had  attracted  the  attention  of  Overbeck  as 
early  as  1828,  was  made  full  member  of  the  Royal 
Academy  in  1848,  and  his  work  for  the  school  of  de- 
sign at  Somerset  House  had  already  called  forth  a 
commonplace  but  earnest  argument  in  the  Qiiarterly 
Review  in  favour  of  precisely  that  attention  to  reality 
and  acquaintance  with  facts  so  ardently  advocated  by 
the  Brotherhood.  "  Painting,"  said  the  writer,  "  no 
less  than  poetry  is  the  child  of  Nature,  and  the  fresher 
it  comes  from  her  hand  the  purer  will  be  its  produc- 
tions." Followers  of  the  "true  school  from  which 
alone  a  national  style  can  originate  "  must  feel  as- 
sured that  every  lane  and  hedgerow  and  cornfield  is 
rich  with  purer  models  than  art  has  ever  produced, 
and  that  there,  if  they  take  the  eye  of  Raphael  with 
them,  even  Raphael  may  be  surpassed."  And  as 
early  as  1843,  Ruskin  had  besought  the  young 
artists  of  England  to  "go  to  nature  in  all  single- 
ness of  heart,  and  walk  with  her  laboriously  and 
trustingly,  having  no  other  thought  but  how  best 
to  penetrate  her  meaning,  rejecting  nothing,  select- 
ing nothing,  and  scorning  nothing,"  —  advice  which 
no  young  artist  was  ever  quite  so  mad  as  literally 
to  follow,  but  which  Ruskin  assumed  had  been 
followed  "to  the  letter"  by  the  Brotherhood,  when 
his  attention  was  called  to  them  in  the  midst  of  their 
difficulties. 

The  fact  that  the  paintings  exhibited  by  Ros- 
setti,  Millais,  and  Hunt  in  1849,  were  tolerably  v/ell 


36 

received,  shows  also  that  the  three  painters  were  not 
outraging  any  accepted  canons  of  taste  by  revolu- 
tionary treatment.  In  May,  Rossetti  wrote  to  his 
aunt  that  his  picture  that  year  (The  Girlhood  of  Mary 
Virgin)  had  created  some  interest,  and  that  the 
Athenaeum  and  the  Builder  approved  it,  as  the  Art 
Journal  did  later. 

The  trouble  that  befell  the  Brotherhood  seems 
really  to  have  started  when  they  made  of  each  other 
Sairey  Gamp's  demand :  "Give  it  a  name,  I  beg!  " 
The  name  chosen  was  a  marvel  of  infelicity,  so  far  as 
its  effect  upon  the  public  was  concerned.  The  idol 
of  English  art  circles  at  that  time  was  Raphael.  His 
suave  manner  had  begotten  endless  imitation,  and 
he  had  long  been  made  to  stand  sponsor  to  a  smooth 
style  easily  acquired,  and  wholly,  of  course,  innocent 
of  his  radiant  serenity.  According  to  Ruskin,  the 
typical  art  student  was  taught  that  Nature  was  full 
of  faults,  but  that  Raphael  was  perfection  ;  that  the 
more  he  copied  Raphael  the  better,  and  that  after 
much  copying  of  Raphael  he  should  try  what  he 
could  do  himself  in  a  Raphaelesque  but  yet  original 
manner.  A  Pre-Raphaelite,  then,  must  be  the  same 
as  an  Anti-Raphaelite  :  to  go  back  of  the  master  for 
ideals  could  be  nothing  less  than  denial  of  the  mas- 
ter ;  moreover,  before  Raphael  was  Medievalism, 
and  the  revival  of  Medievalism  in  England  was  just 
then  taking  the  objectionable  form  of  Puseyism. 
Consequently  a  "Pre-Raphaelite"  who  painted  re- 
ligious pictures  with  somewhat  archaic  simplicity, 


37 

and  belonged  to  a  Brotherhood,  was  probably  a 
Puseyite  and  a  danger  to  be  reckoned  with. 

Therefore,  after  the  public  for  two  years  in  suc- 
cession had  seen  in  its  exhibitions  pictures  bearing 
the  initials  P.-R.  B.,  and  had  learned,  through  some 
sad  garrulity  of  Rossetti's  own,  what  the  mysterious 
letters  stood  for,  the  dogs  of  war  were  let  loose  and 
bayed  for  a  time  unceasingly. 

"That  two  youths  of  the  respective  ages  of 
eighteen  and  twenty,"  wrote  Ruskin  in  1851, 
"  should  have  conceived  for  themselves  a  totally 
independent  and  sincere  method  of  study,  and  en- 
thusiastically persevered  in  it  against  every  kind  of 
dissuasion  and  opposition,  is  strange  enough  ;  that 
in  the  third  or  fourth  year  of  their  efforts  they  should 
have  produced  works  in  many  parts  not  inferior  to 
the  best  of  Albert  Durer,  this  is  perhaps  not  less 
strange.  But  the  loudness  and  universality  of  the 
howl  which  the  common  critics  of  the  press  have 
raised  against  them,  the  utter  absence  of  all  gener- 
ous help  or  encouragement  from  those  who  can  both 
measure  their  toil  and  appreciate  their  success,  and  the 
shrill,  shallow  laughter  of  those  who  can  do  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other, — these  are  the  strangest  of  all 
—  unimaginable  unless  they  had  been  experienced." 

Charles  Dickens  was  among  their  more  vehement 
assailants.  In  Household  Words  he  warned  his  read- 
ers of  the  corruptness  of  the  new  school  with  a  mani- 
fest ignorance  and  solemn  presumption  worthy  of 
his  own  immortal  Pecksniff. 


38  Gbe  1Ro00etti0. 

"  You  come  into  the  Royal  Academy  Exhibition," 
he  says,  "  which  is  familiar  with  the  works  of 
Wilkie,  Etty,  Collins,  Mulready,  Eastlake,  Leslie, 
Maclise — to  the  contemplation  of  a  Holy  Family. 
You  will  have  the  goodness  to  discharge  from  your 
minds  all  post-Raphael  ideas,  all  religious  aspira- 
tions, all  elevating  thoughts,  all  tender,  awful,  sor- 
rowful, ennobling,  sacred,  graceful,  and  beautiful 
associations,  and  to  prepare  yourself  as  befits  such  a 
subject  —  pre-Raphaelly  considered  —  for  the  lowest 
depths  of  what  is  mean,  odious,  repulsive,  and 
revolting." 

These  mean,  odious,  repulsive,  and  revolting 
compositions  were  The  Christian  Missionary  by 
Hunt,  and  The  Boy  Christ  in  the  Carpenter's  Shop 
by  Millais,  the  latter  a  naive  and  tenderly  wrought 
conception  of  the  poignant  text : 

"And  one  shall  say  unto  Him,  What  are  these 
wounds  in  Thine  hands  ?  Then  He  shall  answer, 
Those  with  which  I  was  wounded  in  the  house  of 
my  friends." 

In  the  "  Free  Gallery  "  of  Portland  Place,  a  gallery 
in  which  the  exhibitors  paid  for  wall-space,  and  the 
public  paid  for  admission,  hung  at  the  same  time 
the  only  less  reviled  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini  (later 
called  The  Annunciation)  by  Rossetti,  of  which  Mr. 
George  Moore  wrote  a  few  years  ago  : 

"Here  at  least  there  is  drama,  and  the  highest 
form  of  drama — spiritual  drama  ;  here,  at  least,  there 
is  story,  and  the  highest  form  of  story — symbol  and 


39 

suggestion.  Rossetti  has  revealed  the  essence  of  this 
intensely  human  story — a  story  that,  whenever  we 
look  below  the  surface  which  is  mediaeval  and  re- 
ligious, we  recognise  as  a  story  of  to-day,  of  yester- 
day, of  all  time."  Painted  on  an  oil  panel  28^  x  17 
inches,  the  white  effect  of  the  .little  Virgin  crouching 
on  her  bed,  confronted  by  the  tall  white-robed  angel 
with  his  lily,  is  daringly  broken  by  the  deep  blue  of 
the  bed-curtains,  the  girl's  reddish  hair,  and  the  red 
screen  in  the  foreground.  The  lovely  eyes  of  the 
Virgin,  "  dawn-tinted  eyes,"  Mr.  Moore  calls  them, 
"filled  with  ache,  dream,  and  expectation,"  are  the 
dominant  charm  of  the  simple  subject,  so  technically 
amiss,  and  so  right  in  sentiment.  This  picture, 
hanging  now  in  the  National  Gallery  beside  the  great 
masterpieces  of  the  past,  in  merit  "far  below  them, 
of  course,  but  not  afraid  of  them,"1  was  described  by 
the  Athenaeum  as  "an  unintelligent  imitation  of  the 
mere  technicalities  of  old  art — golden  glories,  fanciful 
scribblings  on  the  frames,  and  other  infantine  ab- 
surdities," the  writer  admitting  only  that  "a  certain 
expression  in  the  eyes  of  the  ill-drawn  face  of  the 
Virgin  affords  a  gleam  of  something  high  in  intention, 
but  it  is  still  not  the  true  inspiration."  It  is  small 
wonder  that  Rossetti  abandoned  precipitately  his 
idea  of  a  third  picture  for  the  Virgin  series,  deciding 
that  the  class  of  pictures  which  "had  his  natural 
preference  "  was  "  not  for  the  market."  But  it  is  in- 
dicative of  a  certain  sturdy  honesty  of  attitude 

1  John  LaFarge. 


40  Gbe  IRossettis. 

toward  criticism  which  too  often  has  been  denied  him, 
that  when  his  brother  was  permitted  by  the  Spectator 
to  publish  in  that  paper,  in  1851,  an  article  on  Pre- 
Raphaelitism,  he  begged  him  not  to  attempt  to  de- 
fend his  medievalisms,  ''which  were  absurd,  but 
rather  say  that  there  was  enough  good  in  the  works 
to  give  assurance  that  these  were  merely  superficial." 

Like  other  painters  of  great  emotional  force,  he 
was  disinclined  to  sentimentalise  over  his  work,  and 
referred  cheerfully  to  this  finest  example  of  his  early 
style  as  "the  blessed  white  eyesore  "  and  "blessed 
white  daub."  In  painting  on  it  he  had  shown  him- 
self free  from  the  hard-and-fast  principle  falsely 
attributed  to  the  Pre-Raphaelites, — the  obligation, 
that  is,  to  paint  only  from  the  model,  "rejecting 
nothing,  selecting  nothing,  and  scorning  nothing." 
"  Yesterday,"  he  records  in  one  of  his  familiar  letters, 
"after  giving  up  the  angel's  head  as  a  bad  job 
(owing  to  William's  malevolent  expression),  I  took  to 
working  it  up  out  of  my  own  intelligence,  and  got  it 
better  by  a  great  deal  than  it  has  yet  been.  I  have 
put  a  gilt  saucer  behind  his  head — which  crowns  the 
China-ese  character  of  the  picture."  In  the  main, 
like  the  rest  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  he  went  to  nature 
for  his  facts,  and  when  nature  failed  him,  he  trusted 
always  to  his  "own  intelligence"  and  copied  no 
one. 

Before  the  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini  was  sold,  Ruskin 
had  heard  through  Coventry  Patmore  that  a  group 
of  young  artists  were  being  persecuted,  had  examined 


Gbe  ipre^lRapbaelitm  41 

the  case/ marshalled  his  arguments,  called  up  all  his 
powers  of  rhetoric,  and  through  a  series  of  letters  to 
the  Times  defended  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  explained 
them,  expressed  them,  and  finally  committed  them 
to  a  set  of  principles  much  more  pronounced  than 
those  originally  held  by  them.  This  championship 
following  violent  assault  was  precisely  what  was 
needed  to  fix  the  name  and  significance  of  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  Brotherhood  in  a  more  formal  and  per- 
manent shape  than  even  its  members  had  dreamed 
of.  It  also  crystallised  the  error  by  which,  after  fifty 
years  and  numerous  refutations,  Ruskin  is  still  held 
responsible  not  merely  for  the  defence  of  the  Brother- 
hood but  for  its  formation.  Whatever  connection  he 
had  with  this  must  consist  merely  of  the  unrecorded 
influence  of  his  first  volume  of  Modern  Painters  upon 
Holman  Hunt,  the  only  Brother  who  took  the  trouble 
to  read  it. 

The  very  year  that  was  marked  by  the  denuncia- 
tions hurled  from  Denmark  Hill  against  the  enemies 
of  the  Brotherhood  was  marked  also  by  its  dissolu- 
tion. By  the  end  of  1850,  the  regular  meetings  had 
died  out.  In  1851,  Collinson  withdrew  in  deference 
to  his  Romanist  preoccupations,  and  Walter  Howell 
Deverell  was  nominated  and  elected  in  his  place  ;  the 
validity  of  the  election  was  questioned,  there  was  a 
flurry  of  discussion,  an  important  meeting,  a  set  of 
new  and  stringent  rules, —  and  immediately  the  or- 
ganisation collapsed  like  the  boyish  affair  it  was. 
There  were  no  more  meetings,  there  was  no  more 


42  Gbe  TRossettie. 

activity.  "  I  fancy,"  writes  Mr.  William 'Rossetti, 
"that  Mr.  Stephens  and  myself  [the  two  members 
who  were  not  artists]  were  the  two  members  who 
most  sincerely  regretted  this  disruption." 

In  the  present  day,  the  most  tangible  reminder  of 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  tempest  is  found  in  the  large 
prices  commanded  by  the  paintings  of  the  Brothers 
in  their  P.-R.  B.  period,  and  even  by  the  reprints  of 
their  especial  mouthpiece,  the  magazine  called  The 
Germ,  the  original  numbers  of  which  sold  in  1850 
for  a  shilling  apiece,  in  1896  at  seven  pounds,  and  in 
1898  at  twelve  guineas  for  the  set  of  four  numbers. 
A  limited  edition  reprinted  in  America  recently 
brought  from  twelve  to  fifteen  dollars  a  copy  for  the 
last  few  copies,  the  first  selling  at  six  dollars. 

The  "blessed  white  daub,"  for  which  Rossetti  in 
1850  asked  fifty  pounds,  was  sold  to  the  nation  in 
1886  for  eight  hundred  pounds — all  of  which  proves 
Rossetti  a  prophet  as  well  as  a  painter,  as  in  1868  he 
wrote  to  Madox  Brown  : 

"  The  epoch  of  Pre-Raphaelitism  was  a  short  one 
which  is  quite  over  and  its  products  will  be  excep- 
tionally valuable  one  day,  but  not  yet."  The  artistic 
value  of  Pre-Raphaelitism  in  relation  to  the  art  of 
England  is  not  so  easily  determined.  As  M.  M£rimee 
pointed  out,  these  combatants  for  realism  had  nothing 
much  to  fight,  no  "  academy  "  in  the  French  sense, 
no  artistic  traditions,  nothing  but  a  style  of  colouring 
fashionable  in  the  studios,  "  une  methode  de  bar- 
bouillage."  They  were  chiefly  praised,  as  they  were 


Gbe  jpre*1RapbaeUte&  43 

chiefly  blamed,  by  an  ethical  and  literary  standard, 
by  the  English  standard  as  it  then  existed.  Nor  can 
we  place  entirely  to  their  credit  the  fact  that  this 
standard  no  longer  exists  there,  or  to  speak  more 
truly,  that  two  standards  now  exist  there,  by  which 
pictures  are  judged — the  intellectual,  and  the  artistic. 
Yet  one  thing  is  certain,  — and  Rossetti  was  not  more 
responsible  for  it  than  Millais  and  Hunt  and  Ruskin, — 
Pre-Raphaelitism  stirred  the  English  art-world  to  its 
depths  by  making  it  inquire  where  before  it  had  ac- 
cepted ;  by  making  it  doubt  where  before  it  had  wor- 
shipped ;  by  making  it  for  an  interval  at  least  look 
with  its  own  eyes  at  problems  of  design  and  colour 
which  before  it  had  ignored,  and  which  afterward  it 
considered  almost  as  defining  a  mission.  Certainly, 
as  Mr.  Russell  Sturgis  has  said  on  more  than  one 
occasion,  "  the  influence  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  and 
the  profound  instinct  which  first  was  seen  strongly 
in  the  Pre-Raphaelites  have  made  the  English  school 
what  it  is." 

The  connection  between  the  English  Pre-Raphael- 
ites and  the  writers  and  painters  sometimes  called  by 
that  name  in  America  is  very  slight,  but  perfectly 
distinct,  and  forms  an  interesting  phase  of  our  own 
rather  complex  national  expression. 

A  people  more  positively  moral  than  artistic  or 
intellectual  or  emotional,  it  was  natural  that  we 
should  take  kindly  to  an  art  with  an  ethical  creed, 
and  respond  promptly  to  the  strenuous  appeal  made 
by  Mr.  Ruskin  for  sincerity  of  method  and  elevation 


44  £be  IRossettis. 

of  subject.  By  his  chart  chiefly  we  sailed  our  toy 
boat  of  Pre-Raphaelitism.  The  message  reached  us 
first,  apparently,  through  Mr.  William  J.  Stillman, 
who,  having  studied  painting  under  F.  E.  Church  for 
a  year  without  hope,  stimulated  by  Modern  Painters 
set  sail  for  England  in  1850  to  see  pictures  and  find  a 
guide  he  could  trust.  He  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Ruskin  ;  an  acquaintance  fatal,  he  now  reflects,  to  the 
career  of  a  painter  whose  head  had  already  "gone 
far  beyond  "  his  technical  attainment.  He  visited  the 
exhibitions  of  that  significant  year,  of  course,  in  which 
Millais  and  Rossetti  were  represented,  gaining  the  im- 
pression that  "if  ever  English  figure-painting  rose 
out  of  mediocrity,  it  would  be  through  the  work  of 
the  P.-R.  B.,"and  he  returned  to  America  with  a  fer- 
mentation of  art  ideas  in  his  brain,  "  in  which,"  he 
says,  "the  influence  of  Turner,  Pyne,  the  teachings 
of  Wehnert,  and  the  work  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites 
mingled  with  the  influence  of  Ruskin,  and  especially 
the  preconception  of  art-work  derived  from  the  de- 
scriptions, often  strangely  misleading,  of  the  Modern 
Painters." 

One  of  the  results  of  this  fermentation  was  The 
Crayon,  "  A  Journal  devoted  to  the  Graphic  Arts 
and  the  literature  related  to  them, "  founded  in  1 85  5  by 
Mr.  Stillman  and  J.  Durand.  A  variety  of  opinions, 
ranging  from  those  of  Rembrandt  Peale  and  Daniel 
Huntington  to  those  of  William  Rossetti  and  Rus- 
kin, found  expression  in  its  columns,  but  the  weight 
of  its  influence  was  thrown  on  the  side  of  the 


Gbe  pre^lRapbaelitee.  45 

painters  who  rebelled  against  classicism  and  academ- 
ic theories.  The  motto  on  its  title-page  was  this 
ominous  sentence  from  Modern  Painters: 

"  Whence,  in  fine,  looking  to  the  whole  kingdom 
of  organic  nature  we  find  that  our  full  receiving  of 
its  beauty  depends  first  on  the  sensibility  and  then 
on  the  accuracy  and  touchstone  faithfulness  of  the 
heart  in  its  moral  judgments." 

In  the  editorials,  also,  the  spirit  of  the  editor, 
"the  Ruskinian  Apostle,"  the  "American  Pre-Ra- 
phaelite," as  he  was  called,  is  not  to  be  mistaken. 
"  The  true  method  of  study,"  he  earnestly  dictates, 
"is  to  take  small  portions  of  scenes,  and  there  to 
explore  perfectly,  and  with  the  most  insatiable  curios- 
ity, every  object  presented,  and  to  define  them  with 
the  carefulness  of  a  topographer.  We  must  learn  to 
see  as  well  as  to  draw,  for  in  our  careless  way  of  re- 
garding Nature,  we  see  as  weakly  as  though  it  were 
only  sketched  instead  of  being  finished.  To  make  a 
single  study  of  a  portion  of  a  landscape  in  this  way, 
is  more  worth  than  a  summer's  sketching."  It  is 
not  strange  that  a  young  man  holding  these  doc- 
trines with  much  the  reverence  his  Puritan  ancestors 
had  for  the  teachings  of  St.  Paul,  should  have  ap- 
plied them  to  his  own  work  regardful  of  the  letter 
that  killeth.  In  his  recently  printed  reminiscences 
he  tells  us  that  he  spent  the  daylight  hours  of  every 
day  for  three  months  on  a  twenty-five  by  thirty  inch 
study  of  a  wood  scene  with  a  violet  in  the  fore- 
ground. "  It  was  not  art,"  he  adds,  "but  the  public 


46  £be  IRossettis. 

did  not  know  this  any  more  than  I  did,  and  I  was 
admitted  to  a  place  which  I  believe  was  one  of  the 
highest  among  my  contemporaries  at  home,  in  a 
way  that  led  to  little  even  in  its  complete  success." 

Before  The  Crayon  died  out  in  1861,  the  influ- 
ence sown  by  its  Pre-Raphaelite  contributors  had 
spread  and  was  ready  to  bear  fruit.  In  1860  Thomas 
C.  Farrer,  a  young  Englishman  who  had  learned  to 
draw  in  the  free  night  school  which  Ruskin  carried 
on  in  London  with  the  help  of  Rossetti,  Woolner, 
and  one  or  two  others,  came  to  America  filled  with 
his  master's  enthusiasm.  He  found  to  his  surprise 
"  a  few  sympathisers  with  the  views  he  had  imbibed 
in  the  Ruskin  school  to  give  him  a  cordial  welcome." 
He  even  found  a  few  artists  and  architects  who  had 
long  sought  to  emancipate  themselves  from  the  con- 
ventionality of  the  prevailing  school.  At  the  end  of 
a  couple  of  years  of  friendly  intercourse  and  ardent 
discussion  these  young  men  organised  themselves  in 
the  "Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Truth  in 
Art."  It  was  the  child  of  the  P.-R.  B.  S.  The  final 
clause  of  its  declaration  of  purposes  read  : 

"  We  hold  that  the  revival  of  Art  in  our  own  time, 
of  which  the  principal  manifestations  have  been  in 
England,  is  full  of  promise  for  the  future  and  con- 
solation for  the  present.  That  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
school  is  founded  on  principles  of  eternal  truth. 
That  the  efforts  for  the  restoration  of  the  so-called 
Gothic  Art  have  been,  in  the  main,  well  directed. 
That  the  hope  for  true  Art  in  the  future  is  in 


47 

the  complete  and  permanent  success  of  this  great 
reformation." 

Of  course  an  "  organ  "  was  needed,  and  there  was 
promptly  established  a  fervid  little  magazine  entitled 
The  New  Path.  Its  mission  was  to  ''summon  the 
young  to  enter  into  the  earnest,  loving  study  of  God's 
work  of  nature."  "The  artists  of  America,"  the 
opening  paper  announces,  "  are  nearly  all  young  men ; 
they  are  not  hampered  by  too  many  traditions,  and 
they  enjoy  the  almost  inestimable  advantage  of  hav- 
ing no  past,  no  masters,  and  no  schools.  Add  that 
they  work  for  an  unsophisticated,  and,  so  far  as  Art 
is  concerned,  uneducated  public,  which,  whatever 
else  may  stand  in  the  way,  will  not  be  prevented  by 
any  prejudice  or  preconceived  notions  from  accepting 
any  really  good  work  which  may  be  set  before  it. 
These  are  solid  advantages,  hardly  possessed  in  such 
a  degree  by  any  other  society,  and  make  a  good 
foundation  on  which  to  build  well  and  beautifully 
for  the  future." 

The  "  unhampered  young  artists  "  believed  in  the 
union  of  the  arts  of  architecture,  sculpture,  and 
painting,  and  The  New  Path  contained  a  great  deal 
of  information  and  some  by  no  means  unworthy 
criticism  in  these  different  directions.  One  of  the 
members  of  the  Association  was  P.  B.  Wight,  the 
architect  of  the  National  Academy  of  Design  building 
at  Twenty-third  Street  and  Fourth  Avenue,  now, 
alas,  abandoned  and  awaiting  destruction.  This 
building  was  designed  in  an  essentially  Pre-Raphaelite 


4^  Gbe  IRoseettis. 

spirit.  ''The  painters,  sculptors,  and  architects," 
Mr.  Wight  says,  "were  actuated  by  a  common 
antipathy  to  everything  that  was  meretricious,  con- 
ventional, andialse,"  and  the  result  was  an  individual 
and  lovely  work,  with  many  defects  but  with  pecul- 
iarly endearing  merits.  One  departure  from  con- 
ventional methods  was  the  realistic  stone  carving  in 
the  manner  of  old  Gothic  ornament.  The  workmen 
had  to  be  trained  to  this,  at  first  working  from  clay 
models,  then  learning  to  study  natural  forms  and 
express  them  with  spirit ;  finding  great  enjoyment 
in  the  work  and  hunting  out  motives  for  themselves 
in  field  and  garden  plants.  Considering  the  difficul- 
ties, these  carved  ornaments  are  remarkably  good. 
They  belong,  of  course,  to  what  is  called  imitative 
art,  and  might  easily  have  been  surpassed  in  beauty 
by  good  copies  of  conventional  designs.  The  charm 
they  have  lies  chiefly  in  the  unmistakable  sincerity 
of  the  method,  the  hall-mark  of  true  Pre-Raphael- 
itism.  The  lilies  and  bulrushes  of  the  spandrels  on 
the  staircase  of  the  Academy  are  neither  botanically 
accurate  nor  agreeably  composed,  but  they  show  a 
simple  devotion  and  a  genuine  preoccupation  with 
the  natural  model  that  covers  their  lack  of  "style" 
in  the  higher  sense  of  that  much-misused  word. 

Other  details  were  made  equally  true  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  "  Truth  in  Art."  The  iron  railing,  for  exam- 
ple, was  made  of  wrought-iron  rods,  ornamented 
with  leaves  cut  from  thin  sheet  iron  and  connected 
with  the  body  of  the  railing  by  slender  stems  of 


Carved  Stone  Ornaments. 

From  the  National  Academy  of  Design. 


. 


. 

. 

• 


ZTbe  ipre^lRapbaelites.  49 

wrought  iron.  The  little  drinking-fountain  with  its 
beautiful  marble  basin  is  architectural  in  treatment 
and  seems  in  place  as  a  part  of  the  building,  and  the 
mosaic  of  the  pavement  in  the  vestibule  is  a  charm- 
ing, if  little-appreciated,  combination  of  yellow,  pur- 
ple, and  grey  marbles.  The  comment  at  the  end  of 
a  careful  description  of  the  then  new  structure,  in  The 
New  Path,  reads  sadly  in  the  light  of  its  approaching 
demolition  : 

"This  solidly  and  admirably  built,  richly  decorated 
building,  a  noble  design  well  carried  out,  will  remain 
for  ages  unless  fire  destroy  it ;  its  lesson  ought  not 
to  be  lost  upon  this  generation,  it  will  not  be  lost  on 
the  next,"  said  the  writer,  who  knew  not  his  Amer- 
ica.1 

It  is  not  easy  to  trace  the  exact  influence  of  the 
artists  who  laboured  with  such  intense  and  joyous 
earnestness  for  the  advancement  of  what  they  be- 
lieved was  in  very  deed  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and 
nothing  but  the  truth  in  Art.  There  were  three  of 
them  whose  work  has  at  least  found  its  way  into 
private  collections,  where  it  is  cherished  with  con- 
stant and  affectionate  delight, — Farrer,  above  men- 
tioned, John  W.  Hill,  and  his  son,  John  Henry  Hill. 

Farrer  was  the  leader  in  the  Association.  His 
was  the  self-conscious  not  the  self-abnegating,  the 
personal  not  the  religious,  temperament.  He  was  at 

1  In  speaking  thus  of  the  Academy  as  a  Pre-Raphaelite  building,  I  have  not 
meant  to  connect  it  directly  with  the  Pre-Raphaelite  movement  in  America  except  as 
it  was  inspired  by  their  ideals,  and  the  outcome  of  study  along  the  lines  approved  by 
Ruskin.  When  Mr.  Wight  was  in  college  he  came  under  the  influence  of  Ruskin's 

4 


50  £be  IRossettis. 

one  with  his  subject,  in  love  with  its  effect  on  his 
emotions  as  well  as  with  its  external  aspect,  absorbed 
in  the  psychologic  value  of  a  limited  and  relatively 
simple  scene.  A  dead  bluebird  on  the  snow,  a  swal- 
low's flight  across  the  pale  purple  evening,  a  single 
hill-crown  against  a  sunset  of  flaming  yellow,  glow 
with  the  intimation  of  truth  beyond  the  fact.  With 
this  poetic  sensitiveness  went  a  power  for  minute 
drawing  of  detail  quite  unequalled.  A  patch  of  weeds 
and  grass  and  tiny  wild  flowers  a  few  inches  square 
became  under  his  pencil  such  a  revelation  of  com- 
plex and  delicate  beauty  as,  literally,  only  the  lens 
discloses  to  the  ordinary  eye.  Here  too,  however, 
there  was  the  suggestion  of  individual  feeling,  the 
imaginative  touch.  Later,  when  Farrer  had  returned 
to  England,  his  methods  changed  completely,  but 
he  never  lost  the  marvellous  accuracy  of  eye  and 
hand  in  whatever  he  chose  to  render. 

The  work  of  the  elder  Hill  was  marked  by  a 
strong  predilection  for  the  happier  moods  of  na- 
ture. His  sunny  fields  were  green  with  the  lux- 
uriant growth  of  fortunate  summers.  His  skies  were 
of  the  bluest.  His  flowers,  of  which  he  painted 
many  in  many  kinds,  were  perfect  and  were  invari- 
ably studied  in  the  outdoor  light.  He  abhorred  the 
studio  and  its  aids  and  it  is  almost  literally  true  that, 
save  for  some  rare  copying,  he  never  worked  beneath 

writings  and  "  then  began  to  admire  Italian  Gothic,"  he  says.  The  Academy  has  so 
often  been  called  a  copy  of  the  Palace  of  the  Doges  that  it  is  interesting  to  learn  from 
its  originator  that  its  details  were  all,  except  the  carving,  which  was  sui  generis, 
"studied  from  Florentine  and  Veronese  originals,  and  not  from  Venetian  models." 


51 

a  roof.  He  even  eschewed  the  favouring  level  light 
of  the  afternoon,  preferring  the  flooding  radiance  of 
the  full  day.  But  he  was  saved  from  the  worst  trials 
of  these  conditions  by  his  attention  to  specific  rather 
than  general  effects  and  his  frank  insensitiveness  to 
mystery.  Those  who  remember  him  will  not  easily 
dissociate  his  gentle,  sincere,  happy  work  from  the 
qualities  of  his  own  nature,  singularly  simple  and 
lovely  and  gracious  as  it  was. 

John  Henry  Hill  painted  in  much  the  same  spirit, 
with  a  less  literal  interest  in  the  phenomena  of  nature 
and  a  more  personal  effort  toward  expression.  One 
of  his  pictures  criticised  in  The  New  Path  was  con- 
demned for  its  "broad  flat  touches  nearly  half  an 
inch  long  (!)  in  dead  flat  colour."  His  colour,  how- 
ever, comes  near  to  representing  in  our  little  history 
of  unimpressive  art  the  phase  represented  in  the 
great  movement  of  French  art  by  the  brilliant  imper- 
sonal style  of  Monet.  His  shadows  are  as  unbe- 
fogged  as  those  of  the  Frenchman,  and  his  half-tones 
are  blithe  with  unmixed  yellows,  blues,  and  reds. 
Even  the  idol  of  his  most  profound  worship,  Turner, 
could  not  wheedle  him  into  acquiescence  with  the 
black  moods  of  his  Calais  Pier  or  The  Shipwreck, 
while  the  colour  of  The  Old  Temeraire  seemed  to 
him  when  he  first  saw  it  perfectly  natural  and  "all 
that  he  could  wish." 

One  of  the  fillips  given  by  The  New  Path  to 
America's  interest  in  art  was  in  the  direction  of 
house  decoration.  We  had  no  William  Morris  to 


52  Gbe  IRossettie. 

carry  out  in  practical  production  the  aesthetic  plans 
of  the  new  school ;  but  it  was  something  to  have 
the  plans  before  the  Philadelphia  Exhibition  in  1876 
changed  our  ideas  so  completely.  The  ground  was 
at  least  prepared  for  seed.  Clarence  Cook  was  the 
principal  writer  on  household  art,  and  in  his  articles 
of  nearly  forty  years  ago  are  found  many  of  the 
principles  governing  the  best  type  of  house  decora- 
tion practised  to-day.  A  vigorous  protest  was  made 
against  the  Wilton  carpets  of  florid  design,  the 
crimson  hangings,  the  gilded  wall-papers,  the  "  ele- 
gant drawing-room  tables,  their  legs  studied  from 
the  hinder- legs  of  dogs,"  the  bedsteads  with  enorm- 
ous head-boards  towering  ''in  ticklish  height  above 
the  pillows,  five  feet  wide  and  about  as  high,  and 
nowhere  more  than  an  inch  and  a  quarter  thick," 
which  constituted  in  1860  the  ideal  furnishings  of 
a  more  or  less  costly  home.  A  corresponding  plea 
was  made  for  hardwood  floors  and  rugs,  for  the 
pleasant  and  plain  design  of  the  ironing  table,  "a 
box  below,  a  seat  upon  the  box,  the  table-top  tipped 
upright  forming  a  back  to  the  seat,"  for  tapestry 
hangings,  for  the  graceful  shapes  of  Venetian  glass, 
and  for  many  another  detail  of  decoration  since  be- 
come accepted  as  a  mark  of  cultivated  taste. 

Thus  in  America  as  in  England  the  name  Pre- 
Raphaelitism  stood  for  sincere  methods  and  personal 
ideas,  and  the  Pre-Raphaelites  were  the  "men  of 
progress  "  in  their  respective  countries. 


CHAPTER  HI. 
THE  GERM. 

NOT  many  months  after  the  organisation  of  the 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood,  the  desire  came 
into  Dante  Rossetti's  mind  to  establish  a 
magazine  in  which  he  and  the  other  six  Brothers,  as 
well  as  outside  sympathisers,  might  present  their 
ideas  to  the  public.  None  of  his  companions  appear 
to  have  been  on  fire  with  this  ambition,  but  Rossetti 
was  not  to  be  denied  and  "  with  varying  degrees  of 
reluctance  his  friends  yielded."  In  July,  1849,  the 
project  was  under  vigorous  discussion.  On  the 
thirteenth  it  was  to  be  a  sixpenny  monthly,  for  which 
four  or  five  would  write  and  one  make  an  etching, 
each  subscribing  a  guinea,  thus  becoming  a  proprietor. 
On  the  fifteenth  it  was  changed  to  a  forty-page  affair 
with  two  etchings,  and  was  to  be  sold  for  a  shilling  a 
number.  The  first  name  suggested  for  it  was 
Monthly  Thoughts  in  Literature  and  Art.  This  was 
changed  to  Thoughts  towards  Nature  at  Dante 
Rossetti's  instigation.  Presently  the  peculiar  title 
The  Germ  was  chosen  from  many  others  implying 

53 


54  £be  IRossettte. 

varying  degrees  of  hopefulness  as  to  its  mission  in 
the  world,  among  them  The  Precursor,  The  Advent, 
The  Illuminator,  The  Die,  The  Chariot,  The  Goad, 
The  Acorn,  The  Alert,  The  Spur.  The  full  title  was 
finally  The  Germ:  Thoughts  towards  Nature  in 
Poetry,  Literature,  and  Art.  Two  numbers  ap- 
peared under  this  title,  the  result  of  earnest  collabora- 
tion among  the  Brothers,  and  the  next  two  numbers 
were  given  the  more  commonplace  designation  Art 
and  Poetry :  Thoughts  towards  Nature,  a  change  of 
which  Rossetti  was  the  chief  advocate,  his  business 
sense  rebelling  against  undue  eccentricity,  as  we  see 
from  his  discussion  of  the  preposition  "  towards  "  in 
the  subtitle.  ' '  I  think  '  towards '  is  much  the  better, " 
he  wrote  to  his  brother,  "  '  toward  '  being  altogether 
between  you,  me,  and  Tennyson  :  and  it  is  well  to 
seem  as  little  affected  as  possible." 

The  original  name,  The  Germ,  suffered  what  the 
philologists  call  a  "  sound  shift  "  from  the  soft  to  the 
hard  "  g,"  some  outsider,  ignorant  of  a  word  not  so 
much  in  use  then  as  now,  having  pronounced  it 
"Gurm,"  a  pronunciation  gleefully  adopted  by  the 
reverend  Brotherhood,  and  since  seriously  used 
against  them  as  typical  of  the  "affectation"  they 
wished  to  avoid. 

Amid  the  preliminary  bustle  of  planning  and  issu- 
ing The  Germ,  Rossetti  went  with  Holman  Hunt  on 
a  trip  to  Paris  and  Belgium,  the  three  or  four  weeks 
of  his  stay  constituting  the  longest  Continental  visit 
he  ever  made.  The  impression  it  produced  upon 


<5erm.  55 

him  cannot  be  called  in  any  marked  degree  important 
to  his  art,  and  his  letters  have  in  them  more  refer- 
ences to  what  is  going  on  at  home  than  to  his  own 
experiences.  In  one  of  the  numerous  sonnets  written 
on  the  journey  he  indicates  with  less  exaggeration 
than  might  be  supposed  the  attitude  of  the  two 
young  travellers  toward  the  treasures  of  the  Louvre  : 

Meanwhile  Hunt  and  myself  race  at  full  speed 
Along  the  Louvre,  and  yawn  from  school  to  school, 
•  Wishing  worn-out  those  masters  known  as  old. 

And  no  man  asks  of  Browning  ;  though  indeed 
(As  the  book  travels  with  me)  any  fool 
Who  would  might  hear  Sordello's  story  told. 

His  first  "  race  "  through  the  gallery  revealed  to 
him,  however,  "  a  most  wonderful  copy  of  a  fresco 
by  Angelico,  a  tremendous  Van  Eyck,  some  mighty 
things  by  that  real  stunner  Lionardo,  some  ineffably 
poetical  Mantegnas  (as  different  as  day  from  night 
from  what  we  have  in  England),  several  wonderful 
Early  Christians  whom  nobody  ever  heard  of,  some 
tremendous  portraits  by  some  Venetian  whose  name 
I  forget,  and  a  stunning  Francis  I.  by  Titian."  A 
few  days  later  he  wrote  :  "  There  are  very  few  good 
things  at  the  Louvre  besides  what  I  mentioned  in  my 
last.  There  is  a  wonderful  head  by  Raphael,  how- 
ever :  another  wonderful  head  by  I  know  not  whom : 
and  a  pastoral — at  least  a  kind  of  pastoral — by  Gior- 
gione,  which  is  so  intensely  fine  that  I  condescended 
to  sit  down  before  it  and  write  a  sonnet." 

At  frequent  stages  of  his  sight-seeing  he  thus 


56  Gbe  IRoesettie. 

condescended,  and  The  Germ  was  the  richer  for  his 
experience  by  six  "Sonnets  for  Pictures,"  The  Car- 
illon (verses  on  the  fantastic  chimes  of  Antwerp 
and  Bruges),  and  the  remarkable  Pax  VoUs  (later 
called  World's  Worth),  which  won  for  him  the 
praise  of  a  Catholic  writer  who  compared  it  to  "a 
thought  from  A  Kempis  elaborated  into  verse,"  be- 
sides the  poem  which  in  The  Germ  is  called  From 
the  Cliffs,  and  in  its  later  and  extended  form,  Sea 
Limits.  In  certain  respects  this  poem  is  as  beauti- 
ful as  any  written  by  him,  and  has  in  full  measure 
the  quality  so  rare  with  him  of  a  Wordsworthian 
outlook  upon  nature,  a  blending  of  imagination  with 
the  tranquil  contemplation  of  natural  objects.  Like 
most  of  these  early  poems  it  was  composed  in  haste 
and  on  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  It  was  slightly 
changed  before  its  appearance  in  The  Germ  and 
greatly  changed  in  the  final  form,  how  much  for  the 
better  may  be  seen  from  a  comparison  of  the  two 
versions  of  the  first  stanza  : 

FROM  THE  CLIFFS  :  NOON. 

The  sea  is  in  its  listless  chime  : 
Like  Time's  lapse  rendered  audible; 
The  murmur  of  the  earth's  large  shell. 

In  a  sad  blueness  beyond  rhyme 
It  ends  :  Sense,  without  Thought,  can  pass 
No  stadium  further.     Since  Time  was, 

This  sound  hath  told  the  lapse  of  Time. 

THE  SEA  LIMITS. 

Consider  the  sea's  listless  chime  : 
Time's  self  it  is,  made  audible, — 


(Berm.  57 

The  murmur  of  the  earth's  own  shell. 

Secret  continuance  sublime 
Is  the  sea's  end  :  our  sight  may  pass 
No  furlong  further.     Since  time  was, 

This  sound  hath  told  the  lapse  of  time. 

A  letter  to  James  Collinson  sent  from  Bruges 
shows  Rossetti's  enthusiasm  for  that  "stunning" 
town  to  be  dependent  chiefly  upon  the  beautiful 
architecture,  the  absence  of  Rubens,  and  the  pre- 
sence of  Memling.  The  latter  he  at  once  worshipped. 
"His  greatest  production,"  he  writes,  "is  a  large 
tryptich  in  the  hospital  of  St.  John  representing  in  its 
three  compartments  :  firstly,  The  Decollation  of  St. 
John  Baptist ;  secondly,  The  Mystic  Marriage  of  St. 
Catherine  to  the  Infant  Saviour ;  and  thirdly,  The 
Vision  of  St.  John  Evangelist  in  Patmos.  I  shall  not 
attempt  any  description  ;  I  assure  you  that  the  per- 
fection of  character  and  even  drawing,  the  astound- 
ing finish,  the  glory  of  colour,  and  above  all  the 
pure  religious  sentiment  and  ecstatic  poetry  of  these 
works,  is  not  to  be  conceived  or  described.  Even  in 
seeing  them,  the  mind  is  at  first  bewildered  by  such 
Godlike  completeness  ;  and  only  after  some  while 
has  elapsed  can  at  all  analyse  the  causes  of  its  awe 
and  admiration ;  and  then  finds  these  feelings  so 
much  increased  by  analysis  that  the  last  impression 
left  is  mainly  one  of  utter  shame  at  its  own  inferior- 
ity." Decidedly  to  Memling  belongs  the  honour 
of  having  been  the  early  painter  with  whom  the 
independent  Rossetti  felt  most  affinity.  He  brings 
into  The  Carillon  a  touch  of  the  personal  feeling 


58  £be  IRossettis. 

toward  him  and  his  companion,  Van  Eyck,  which  a 
"  follower"  has  for  his  "  master." 

John  Memmeling  and  John  Van  Eyck 
Hold  state  at  Bruges.     In  sore  shame 
I  scanned  the  works  that  keep  their  name. 

The  carillon  which  then  did  strike 

Mine  ears,  was  heard  of  theirs  alike  : 
It  set  me  closer  unto  them. 

The  first  number  of  The  Germ  was  published  on 
or  about  January  i,  1850.  On  the  front  of  the  cover 
appeared  a  sonnet  by  William  Rossetti  written  in  a 
spirit  conciliatory  to  critics  :  on  the  back  was  a  pro- 
spectus embodying  a  creed,  and  announcing  that  the 
periodical  would  consist  "of  original  Poems,  Stories 
to  develop  thought  and  principle,  Essays  concerning 
Art  and  other  subjects,  and  analytic  Reviews  of  cur- 
rent Literature — particularly  of  Poetry  "  ;  and  that 
throughout  the  writings  on  art  the  endeavour  would 
be  "to  encourage  and  enforce  an  entire  adherence  to 
the  simplicity  of  nature  ;  and  also  to  direct  attention, 
as  an  auxiliary  medium,  to  the  comparatively  few 
works  which  Art  has  yet  produced  in  this  spirit." 

The  youth  of  most  of  the  contributors  is  perhaps 
indicated  in  the  dejection  characterising  the  poetry 
chosen  for  this  number,  four  of  the  nine  poems  hav- 
ing death  for  their  subject. 

They  strike,  however,  the  true  note  of  poetry. 
The  magazine  opens  with  Thomas  Woolner's  My 
Beautiful  Lady,  followed  by  the  supplementary 
Of  My  Lady  in  Death,  each  of  which  unites  to 


(5erm.  59 

lovely  cadences  the  element  of  deep  emotion  deli- 
cately regulated  and  restrained  by  the  "  severely 
simple  art"  of  their  author,  the  "sculpturesque" 
art  which  to  Coventry  Patmore  seemed  his  defect. 
Two  stanzas  from  the  second  poem  will  serve  to 
show  the  true  Pre-Raphaelite  method  in  writing, 
the  same  method  which,  applied  to  painting,  im- 
pelled Millais  to  surround  his  dead  Ophelia  with 
banks  of  surpassingly  realistic  flowers  and  grasses  : 

About  her  window,  at  the  dawn, 

From  the  vine's  crooked  boughs 

Birds  chirruped  an  arouse  : 
Flies,  buzzing,  strengthened  with  the  morn; — 

She  '11  hot  hear  them  again 

At  random  strike  the  pane  : 
No  more  upon  the  close-cut  lawn, 

Her  garment's  sun-white  hem 

Bend  the  prim  daisy's  stem, 
In  walking  forth  to  see  what  flowers  are  born. 

No  more  she  '11  watch  the  dark-green  rings 

Stained  quaintly  on  the  lea, 

To  image  fairy  glee; 
While  thro'  dry  grass  a  faint  breeze  sings, 

And  swarms  of  insects  revel 

Along  the  sultry  level: — 
No  more  will  watch  their  brilliant  wings, 

Now  lightly  dip,  now  soar, 

Then  sink,  and  rise  once  more. 
My  lady's  death  makes  dear  these  trivial  things. 

After  these  poems  (the  two  comprising  fifty 
stanzas),  follow  a  sonnet  on  The  Love  of  Beauty, 
by  Ford  Madox  Brown  ;  a  long,  dull  paper  on  The 
Subject  in  Art,  by  John  Lucas  Tupper;  a  graceful 


60  Ebe  IRoesettis. 

little  poem  called  The  Seasons,  by  Coventry  Pat- 
more  (the  gaining  of  which  had  seemed  to  Rossetti 
a  bit  of  unparalleled  good  fortune);  Dreamland, 
by  Christina  Rossetti ;  My  Sister's  Sleep,  by  Dante 
Gabriel  ;  the  prose  story,  Hand  and  Soul,  by 
Dante  Gabriel  ;  a  thirteen-page  review  of  Arthur 
Hugh  Clough's  The  Bothie  of  Toper-na-fuosich, 
by  William  Rossetti ;  a  sonnet,  Her  First  Season, 
by  William  Rossetti  ;  a  poem  called  A  Sketch 
from  Nature  by  John  Lucas  Tupper;  and  the  gloomy 
little  verses,  An  End,  by  Christina  Rossetti. 

To  a  student  of  Rossetti  the  most  important  con- 
tribution to  this  number  of  The  Germ  is  Hand  and 
Soul,  written  at  white  heat,  its  author  sitting  up  the 
whole  of  a  December  night  to  finish  it  in  time.  It 
is  the  only  narrative  in  prose  that  he  ever  did  finish 
and  contains  the  promise  of  an  unusual  style,  a  dic- 
tion as  pure  and  limpid  and  direct  as  that  of  Haw- 
thorne, though  far  more  personal.  In  substance  it  is 
the  chronicle  of  the  psychological  life  of  a  supposed 
Italian  painter  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Chiaro 
dell'  Erma  by  name  ;  of  his  desire  for  fame,  and  sub- 
sequent contempt  for  what  he  found  to  be  so  easily 
gained  ;  of  his  rather  ignoble  revival  at  the  prospect 
of  being  surpassed  by  a  more  faithful  worker ;  of 
his  conversion  to  subjects  of  moral  greatness  at 
which  men  cared  little  to  look  ;  and  of  his  ultimate 
model  appearing  to  him  in  the  shape  of  his  own 
soul  embodied  in  the  person  of  a  beautiful  woman, 
who  chides  him  while  she  comforts,  and  whose 


<5erm.  61 

portrait  he  paints  with  jealous  truth  that  his  soul 
may  stand  before  him  always  and  perplex  him  no 
more.  The  Epilogue  describes  this  portrait  as  hang- 
ing in  the  Pitti  Gallery  of  Florence,  and  gives  partic- 
ulars concerning  it  with  an  air  of  such  good  faith 
that  more  than  one  Passionate  Pilgrim  has  sought 
there  for  it  in  vain. 

Notwithstanding  the  somewhat  boyish  and  mor- 
bid tone  of  Hand  and  Soul,  the  little  tale  is  rich  in 
thoughts  and  suggestions  that  are  not  boyish  cer- 
tainly, and  that  show  Rossetti  on  intimate  terms 
with  conscience.  It  was  not  boyish,  for  example, 
nor  was  it  in  accordance  with  the  influences  of  his 
youth,  to  read  presumption  in  the  efforts  of  men 
to  teach  godliness. 

"  How  is  it  that  thou,  a  man,"  Chiaro's  soul  says 
to  him,  "  wouldst  say  coldly  to  the  mind  what  God 
hath  said  to  the  heart  warmly  ?  Thy  will  was 
honest  and  wholesome  ;  but  look  well  lest  this 
also  be  folly,  ...  to  say,  '  I,  in  doing  this,  do 
strengthen  God  among  men.'  When  at  any  time 
hath  he  cried  unto  thee,  saying,  '  My  son,  lend  me 
thy  shoulder,  for  I  fall '  ?  Deemest  thou  the  men 
who  enter  God's  temple  in  malice,  to  the  provoking 
of  blood,  and  neither  for  his  love  nor  for  his  wrath 
will  abate  their  purpose,  .  .  .  shall  afterwards 
stand  with  thee  in  the  porch,  midway  between  Him 
and  themselves,  to  give  ear  unto  thy  thin  voice, 
which  merely  the  fall  of  their  visors  can  drown,  and 
to  see  thy  hands,  stretched  feebly,  tremble  among 


62  £be  IRossettis. 

their  swords  ?  Give  thou  to  God  no  more  than  he 
asketh  of  thee  :  but  to  man  also,  that  which  is  man's. 
In  all  that  thou  doest  work  from  thine  own  heart, 
simply  ;  for  his  heart  is  as  thine,  when  thine  is  wise 
and  humble ;  and  he  shall  have  understanding  of 
thee." 

While  Hand  and  Soul  is  the  only  complete  prose 
work  by  Rossetti,  a  fragment  remains  of  a  story 
called  St.  Agnes  of  the  Intercession,  begun  at  about 
the  same  time,  which  shows  even  more  clearly  the 
preoccupation  of  the  young  writer  with  unprosaic 
thoughts.  It  is  written  in  a  plainer  narrative  style, 
but  has  for  its  theme  the  more  fantastic  history  of  an 
English  painter,  convinced  that  his  soul  has  lived  in 
this  world  prior  to  his  birth,  and  finding  in  con- 
firmation of  this  belief  two  portraits  in  a  Florentine 
gallery  resembling  in  minute  detail  his  betrothed 
and  himself. 

"That  it  was  my  portrait, — that  the  St.  Agnes 
was  the  portrait  of  Mary, —  and  that  both  had  been 
painted  by  myself  four  hundred  years  ago, — this 
now  rose  up  distinctly  before  me  as  the  one  and 
only  solution  of  so  startling  a  mystery,  and  as  being, 
in  fact,  that  result  round  which,  or  some  portion  of 
which,  my  soul  had  been  blindly  hovering,  uncertain 
of  itself." 

Here  we  find  the  legendary  idea  later  repeated  in 
the  picture  How  They  Met  Themselves,  for  which  the 
first  design  was  drawn  in  1851.  St.  Agnes  of  the 
Intercession  was  intended  for  the  fifth  number  of 


(Serm.  63 

The  Germ,  but  the  number  never  appeared  and  the 
story  was  never  finished,  although  in  1882  Rossetti, 
with  his  curious  clinging  to  the  inventions  of  his 
past,  had  the  manuscript  sent  down  to  Birchington 
that  he  might  complete  it. 

In  the  second  number  of  the  magazine  came  The 
Blessed  Damo^el,  the  first  version  of  which  was 
written  in  1846  or  1847,  and  in  which,  as  in  the 
Ecce  Ancilla  Domini,  we  touch  Rossetti 's  mind  at 
a  period  when  his  mystical  and  his  earthly  tenden- 
cies were  nearest  together.  Later,  when  he  saw 
more  fully  the  sumptuous  beauty  of  the  physical  and 
natural  world ;  when  his  colour  grew  heavier  with 
rich  and  splendid  hues,  when  his  forms  had  ripened 
into  more  opulent  loveliness,  when  his  words  were 
chosen  with  a  more  instructed  sense  of  emotional 
meaning,  something  had  fallen  from  his  style  both 
in  writing  and  in  painting,  some  fine  cloak  of  youth- 
ful aspiration  toward  the  higher  interpretation  of 
feeling  and  thought,  and  of  hesitation  in  grasping  the 
vulgar  truths  within  reach  of  the  common  hand. 
Only  for  two  or  three  years  had  he  both  dispositions 
equally,  the  years  of  his  assumed  Pre-Raphaelitism, 
when  his  genius,  hardly  unfolded  from  the  sheath 
was  enchanting,  and  never  more  so  than  in  The 
Blessed  Damoqel,  the  unmatched  delicacy  and  ten- 
derness of  which  surpass  the  most  inspired  love- 
poems  of  Tennyson  or  Keats. 

Poe's  Raven,  according  to  Mr.  Caine,  was  the  father 
of  this  poem,  Rossetti  having  felt  that  Poe  had  done 


64  £be  IRossettis. 

the  utmost  it  was  possible  to  do  with  the  grief  of  the 
lover  upon  earth,  and  determining  to  reverse  the  con- 
ditions and  give  expression  to  the  grief  of  the  one  in 
heaven.  The  son  of  a  free-thinking  father  and  a 
mother  who  was  a  devout  member  of  the  Church  of 
England,  Rossetti  himself  was  not  given  to  religious 
observance  and  was  certainly  not  a  Romanist  in  creed 
or  habit,  but  his  delight  in  the  Christian  symbol  elab- 
orated in  colour  and  form  and  harmonious  with  the 
most  poignant  moods  of  the  soul,  was  an  inalienable 
part  of  his  mental  equipment.  His  imagery  was  such 
as  to  appeal  to  a  devout  imagination  under  the  poetic 
guidance  of  the  Church.  His  earliest  prepossessions 
linked  his  visions  of  an  unknown  world  to  the  visi- 
ble signs  familiar  to  incense-laden  sanctuaries,  and 
one  of  his  latest  impulses  turned  him  toward  the 
confessional ' '  for  the  absolution  of  his  sins. "  ' '  Alone 
among  the  higher  artists  of  his  age,"  Mr.  Swinburne 
says  of  him,  "  he  has  felt  and  given  the  mere  physical 
charm  of  Christianity  with  no  admixture  of  doctrine 
or  of  doubt."  The  Blessed  Damo^el  is  a  treasury  of 
mediaeval  emblems,  of  phraseology  not  belonging  to 
any  religious  sect  or  type  but  representing  the  aesthetic 
and  dramatic  mood  of  a  faith  that  has  preserved  from 
age  to  age  the  devotional  spirit  in  loveliness  of  out- 
ward form. 

If  it  was  indeed  Poe  who  suggested  the  poem  it 
was  no  less  Dante  who  inspired  it ;  all  that  is  curious 
and  foreign  in  it  to  the  reader  of  modern  poetry  finds 
its  counterpart  in  the  spirit  of  the  Vita  Nuova.  The 


<5erm.  65 

damozel,  upon  the  terrace  of  God's  house,  and  seek- 
ing "  the  groves  where  the  lady  Mary  is  "  among  the 
souls  that,  "mounting  up  to  God,  went  by  her  like 
thin  flames,"  is  of  kin  with  Beatrice,  who,  "gone 
up  into  high  Heaven,  the  kingdom  where  the  angels 
are  at  peace,  "  woke  "wonder  in  the  Eternal  Sire," 
and  spread  "even  there  a  light  of  Love"  which 
made  the  angels  glad.  But  this  is  not  to  say  that 
Rossetti's  was  an  imitative  gift.  Without  Dante  he 
could  not  perhaps  have  shaped  his  beautiful  illusions 
into  images  of  such  splendid  rhetorical  colour,  he 
made  his  own  the  mediaeval  habit  of  thought  because 
it  fitted  him  and  became  his  quality  of  mind  ;  but  the 
feeling  informing  his  words  is  dependent  upon  no 
forerunner  nor  upon  any  contemporary  influence.  In 
the  final  stanzas  of  The  Blessed  Damozel  he  sets 
his  seal  upon  a  haunting  imaginative  sentiment  that 
whenever  it  appeared  in  his  work  was  always  to 
confirm  his  genius  : 

"  There  will  I  ask  of  Christ  the  Lord 

Thus  much  for  him  and  me  : — 
To  have  more  blessing  than  on  earth 

In  nowise  :  but  to  be 
As  then  we  were, — being  as  then 

At  peace.     Yea,  verily. 

"Yea,  verily  ;  when  he  is  come 
We  will  do  thus  and  thus  : 
Till  this  my  vigil  seem  quite  strange 

And  almost  fabulous  ; 
We  two  will  live  at  once,  one  life  ; 
And  peace  shall  be  with  us." 


66 

She  gazed  and  listened,  and  then  said, 

Less  sad  of  speech  than  mild  : 
"All  this  is  when  he  comes."     She  ceased  : 

The  light  thrilled  past  her,  filled 
With  angels  in  strong  level  lapse. 

Her  eyes  prayed,  and  she  smiled. 

(I  saw  her  smile.)     But  soon  their  flight 
Was  vague  'mid  the  poised  spheres. 

And  then  she  cast  her  arms  along 
The  golden  barriers, 

And  laid  her  face  between  her  hands, 
And  wept.     (I  heard  her  tears.) 

Of  the  fifty-one  contributions  to  The  Germ  twen- 
ty-six belong  to  the  Rossettis,  and  of  these  only  five 
are  prose.  Christina's  poems  were  published  under 
the  pseudonym  of  Ellen  Alleyn,  which  Dante  Gabriel 
composed  for  her,  and,  with  the  exception  of  the 
familiar  little  song  beginning,  "Ah  !  roses  for  the 
flush  of  youth,"  are  rather  feeble  examples  of  her 
talent,  which  developed  less  early  than  her  brother's. 
Other  contributors  than  those  already  mentioned 
were  Calder  Campbell,  James  Collinson,  Walter 
Howell  Deverell,  John  Orchard,  William  Bell  Scott, 
F.  G.  Stephens,  and  George  F.  Tupper. 

The  most  marked  feature  of  the  contents  of  the 
magazine  as  a  whole  is  freedom  from  the  polemical 
attitude  of  mind.  The  rebellion  of  the  young 
reformers  against  prevailing  conventions  found  ex- 
pression chiefly  in  the  production  of  work  of  an  un- 
conventional character.  This  surprising  lack  of 
dogmatism  and  even  of  explanation,  has  been  no- 
ticed by  Mr.  Noble  in  his  paper  on  A  Pre-Raphaelite 


(Berm.  67 

Magazine,  published  just  after  Rossetti's  death.  A 
few  articles  of  a  dialectic  cast  marred  the  pages,  but 
these  were  in  a  small  minority,  and  were  not  in  them- 
selves attractive.  The  true  message  of  The  Germ  was 
embodied  in  the  poems  and  etchings  and  criticisms 
testifying  to  the  earnest  convictions  of  their  authors 
by  the  care  and  originality  of  their  workmanship. 
The  etchings,  on  which  much  stress  was  laid,  were, 
curiously,  decidedly  less  successful  than  the  literary 
portion  of  the  magazine.  Only  one,  the  first,  by 
Holman  Hunt  (illustrative  of  Woolner's  poems),  pos- 
sesses any  elements  of  real  beauty.  The  second,  by 
Collinson,  is  stiff  and  flaccid,  and  hopelessly  unsug- 
gestive.  The  third  is  Madox  Brown's,  and  cost  him, 
he  says,  3 is.  6d.,  bringing  him  in  nothing,  not  even 
self-satisfaction,  as  it  was  little  to  his  liking.  It  was 
done  hastily,  to  take  the  place  of  one  by  Rossetti, 
whose  fastidious  taste  would  not  be  satisfied  by  his 
own  production.  The  fourth  is  by  Walter  Deverell, 
and  portrays  much  of  the  extravagance  and  crudity 
with  which  the  P.-R.B.'s  were  charged. 

Neither  pictures,  poems,  nor  tales,  however,  were 
of  a  quality  to  sell  The  Germ.  The  founders  made 
laudable  efforts  toward  financial  success,  advertising 
in  The  Athenceum,  sending  copies  to  personages  in 
high  places,  as  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell, and  to  the  principal  club-houses,  arranging  with 
the  porter  of  Somerset  House  to  sell  to  the  School  of 
Design  students,  introducing  it  among  artists'  colour- 
men,  and  employing  many  other  devices  to  make 


68  £be  IRoseettis. 

friends  for  it,  with  a  resulting  sale  of  two  hundred 
out  of  the  seven  hundred  copies  of  the  first  issue. 
"It  now  becomes  a  most  momentous  question," 
William  Rossetti  records  in  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Diary, 
immediately  after  the  publication  of  No.  2,  "whether 
we  shall  be  in  a  position  to  bring  out  a  }rd  No." 
Upon  learning  a  week  or  so  later  that  some  forty 
copies  of  the  second  number  have  sold,  he  makes  the 
disheartening  entry  :  "This  is  the  last  knockdown 
blow.  We  certainly  cannot  attempt  a  }rd  No."  At 
this  point  the  Tupper  brothers  intervened,  proposing 
to  carry  the  magazine  on  for  one  or  two  numbers 
further,  "to  give  it  a  fair  trial,"  at  their  own  risk; 
advertising  it  more  extensively,  "a  very  friendly 
action  on  their  part." 

But  the  little  periodical  was  doomed,  and  died 
with  the  publication  of  the  fourth  number,  "  leaving 
a  legacy"  of  the  printer's  bill,  some  thirty-three 
pounds,  which  in  course  of  time  was  cleared  off,  with 
the  result  that  none  of  the  company  "ever  again  made 
any  proposal  for  publishing  a  magazine."  It  struck 
an  almost  unheeded  note,  yet  it  was  the  intellectual 
prototype  of  The  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine, 
which  ran  during  the  year  1856,  and  of  The  Cen- 
tury Guild  Hobby-Horse,  which  proclaimed  from  the 
Chiswick  Press  the  "  unity  of  art,"  during  the  brief 
term  of  its  existence.  It  should  not  perhaps  be  said 
that  The  Germ  did  not  in  any  sense  fructify,  although 
an  attempt  to  trace  the  precise  relation  between  the 
fruit  and  the  seed  would  be  hazardous  enough. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
MISS  SIDDAL. 

THE  year  1850  was  the  visible  starting-point  of 
a  number  of  the  principal  threads  twisted 
thereafter  into  the  puzzling  pattern  of  Ros- 
setti's  life.  In  that  year  the  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini, 
the  first  picture  in  which  he  tried  for  and  achieved 
psychological  expression,  was  exhibited  ;  The 
Blessed  Damo^el  was  printed,  in  which  are  de- 
fined the  finest  qualities  of  his  later  poems  with 
"anticipative  notes  obscurely  struck";  and  in  that 
year  he  met  Elizabeth  Eleanor  Siddal,  who  until  her 
death  formed  his  most  absorbing  preoccupation, 
and  was  the  first  object  of  that  impetuous,  depend- 
ent fondness  which  lay  at  the  root  of  his  imaginations 
and  of  many  of  his  acts.  "For  Rossetti,"  Pater 
said  with  truth,  "the  great  affections  of  persons  to 
each  other,  swayed  and  determined,  in  the  case  of 
his  highly  pictorial  genius,  mainly  by  that  so-called 
material  loveliness,  formed  the  great  undeniable 
reality  in  things,  the  solid  resisting  substance,  in  a 
world  where  all  beside  might  be  but  shadow." 

69 


70  £be  IRossettis. 

Miss  Siddal  was  a  milliner's  assistant  when  Ros- 
setti  first  knew  her.  The  Pre-Raphaelite  Brother, 
Walter  Deverell,  discovered  her  in  a  shop  which  he 
was  visiting  with  his  mother,  and  her  extraordinary 
type  of  beauty  prompted  him  to  try  to  obtain  sit- 
tings from  her.  In  this,  with  his  mother's  aid,  he 
succeeded,  and  soon  she  was  posing  for  the  various 
members  of  the  Brotherhood.  She  was  hardly  sev- 
enteen years  old,  graceful  and  dignified  in  manner, 
with  a  touch  of  the  disdain  that  one  observes  in 
every  one  of  Rossetti's  drawings  of  her.  Her  edu- 
cation was  ordinary,  but  her  mind  was  receptive 
and  individual,  judging  from  the  pictures  and  poems 
produced  under  Rossetti's  influence, — poor  enough, 
certainly,  according  to  all  technical  standards,  but 
distinguished  by  a  simplicity  verging  on  stiffness, 
and  by  a  very  plaintive  and  despondent  but  not  a 
cloying  sentiment.  Before  her  training  by  the 
Brotherhood,  she  had  shown  her  proclivities  by 
hunting  out  Tennyson's  poems  for  herself,  having 
found  one  or  two  of  them  upon  "a  piece  of  paper 
which  she  had  brought  home  to  her  mother  wrapped 
around  a  pat  of  butter."  Her  father  has  been  re- 
ported in  turn  a  cutler,  a  watchmaker,  and  an  auc- 
tioneer. One  of  her  neighbours,  who  knew  her  as  a 
child  and  was  kind  to  her,  is  known  to  the  British 
public  as  "a  murderer,  more  than  commonly  exe- 
crable, who  was  duly  hanged."  Thus  her  environ- 
ment was  obviously  not  favourable  to  refinement  of 
manner  or  spirit,  yet  there  is  no  dissenting  voice 


fHMss  SUftaL  71 

to  the  chorus  praising  her  innate  sensitiveness  and 
purity.  Ruskin,  with  characteristic  expansiveness, 
called  her  "a  noble  glorious  creature,"  and  his  father 
said  that  by  her  look  and  manner  she  might  have 
been  a  Countess.  Madame  Belloc  found  her  "not 
in  the  least  like  a  Countess  "  but  with  "  the  look  of 
one  who  read  her  Bible  and  said  her  prayers  every 
night."  Swinburne  remembers  "her  matchless 
grace,  loveliness,  courage,  endurance,  wit,  humour, 
heroism,  and  sweetness"  as  "too  dear  and  sacred 
to  be  profaned  by  any  attempt  at  expression."  Ros- 
setti  himself,  in  one  significant  passage  of  a  letter  to 
William  Allingham  (1854),  shows  his  appreciation 
not  merely  of  her  charm  but  of  the  aspirations  to- 
ward cultivation  and  growth  which  she  commonly 
hid  under  light  and  "  chaffing  "talk. 

"  It  seems  hard  to  me,"  he  says,  "when  I  look 
at  her  sometimes,  working  or  too  ill  to  work,  and 
think  how  many  without  one  tithe  of  her  genius  or 
greatness  of  spirit  have  granted  them  abundant 
health  and  opportunity  to  labour  through  the  little 
they  can  or  will  do,  while  perhaps  her  soul  is  never 
to  bloom  nor  her  bright  hair  to  fade,  but  after  hardly 
escaping  from  degradation  and  corruption  all  she 
might  have  been  must  sink  out  again  unprofitably  in 
that  dark  house  where  she  was  born.  How  truly 
she  may  say,  'No  man  cared  for  my  soul.'  I  do  not 
mean  to  make  myself  an  exception,  for  how  long  I 
have  known  her,  and  not  thought  of  this  till  so  late 
— perhaps  too  late." 


72  Gbe  TRossettte. 

Of  the  " so-called  material  loveliness"  which 
meant  to  Rossetti  as  much  at  least  as  it  meant  to 
Dante  in  his  Beatrice,  she  had  much  more  than 
the  usual  share.  Mr.  William  Rossetti  describes  her 
as  "  tall,  finely  formed,  with  a  lofty  neck,  and  regu- 
lar yet  somewhat  uncommon  features,  greenish-blue 
unsparkling  eyes,  large,  perfect  eyelids,  brilliant 
complexion,  and  a  lavish,  heavy  wealth  of  coppery- 
golden  hair."  If  we  add  to  these  details  the  ex- 
pression which  suggested  a  morbid  languor  and 
dreaminess  in  curious  contrast  with  the  richness  of 
colouring  and  form,  we  see  at  once  how  adequately 
she  fitted  Rossetti's  Dantesque  dreams  with  her  defi- 
nite yet  visionary  beauty.  Beata  Beatrix  she  was  to 
him  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  and  only  one — 
the  last  of  the  many  Beatrices  of  his  pictures — was 
done  from  anyone  else. 

At  the  time  she  entered  upon  her  duties  as  a 
model  the  Brothers  were  depending  greatly  upon 
one  another  for  the  figures  in  their  Pre-Raphaelite 
pictures.  Their  intention  to  cleave  to  nature  had  its 
practical  difficulties,  and  their  purses  could  not,  per- 
haps, bear  the  strain  of  many  hired  models,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  inferiority  of  these  in  most  cases  in 
precisely  those  traits  of  physiognomy  which  they 
most  valued.  Thus  we  find  them  upheld  in  the 
role  of  model  as  in  that  of  artist  by  their  exuberant 
enthusiasm,  Rossetti  posing  all  night  for  Madox 
Brown's  Chaucer,  Stephens  standing  for  Millais's 
exquisite  picture  of  Ferdinand  Lured  by  Ariel  until 


HIM06  Sifcfcal  73 

he  lost  control  of  his  muscles,  having  to  be  carried 
from  the  room,  and  Deverell,  Stephens,  and  both 
Rossettis  serving  for  the  figures  of  Millais's  Lorenzo 
and  Isabella. 

With  their  conscientious  notions  the  office  was 
no  sinecure.  Millais's  biographer  tells  the  story  of 
Miss  Siddal's  experience  in  posing  for  the  Ophelia. 
"  In  order  that  the  artist  might  get  the  proper  set  of 
the  garments  in  water  and  the  right  atmosphere  and 
aqueous  effects,"  he  says,  "  she  had  to  lie  in  a  large 
bath  filled  with  water,  which  was  kept  at  an  even 
temperature  by  lamps  placed  beneath.  One  day, 
just  as  the  picture  was  nearly  finished,  the  lamps 
went  out  unnoticed  by  the  artist,  who  was  so  in- 
tensely absorbed  in  his  work  that  he  thought  of 
nothing  else,  and  the  poor  lady  was  kept  floating  in 
the  cold  water  till  she  was  quite  benumbed.  She 
herself  never  complained  of  this,  but  the  result  was 
that  she  contracted  a  severe  cold,  and  her  father 
wrote  to  fylillais,  threatening  him  with  an  action  for 
fifty  pounds'  damages  for  his  carelessness.  Event- 
ually the  matter  was  satisfactorily  compromised. 
Millais  paid  the  doctor's  bill ;  and  Miss  Siddal,  quickly 
recovering,  was  none  the  worse  for  her  cold  bath." 

This  episode  occurred  in  1851  and  Rossetti  is  re- 
ported as  at  that  time  already  in  love  with  Miss 
Siddal.  Their  engagement  took  place,  according  to 
Mr.  William  Rossetti,  probably  before  or  not  long 
after  the  close  of  the  year,  lasted  nine  years,  and 
ended  somewhat  precipitately  at  last,  in  marriage,  in 


74  £be  IRossettte. 

1860,  when  death  seemed  about  to  cut  short  the 
lady's  life  and  the  dalliance  of  the  peculiar  intercourse. 

"  Like  all  the  important  things  I  ever  meant  to 
do,"  Rossetti  wrote  to  his  mother  on  the  eve  of  his 
marriage,  "to  fulfil  duty  or  secure  happiness — this 
one  has  been  deferred  almost  beyond  possibility.  I 
have  hardly  deserved  that  Lizzy  should  still  consent 
to  it,  but  she  has  done  so,  and  I  trust  I  may  still  have 
time  to  prove  my  thankfulness  to  her." 

In  part  the  delay  was  due  to  Miss  Siddal's  capri- 
cious and  waning  health  making  all  plans  difficult 
to  form  and  carry  out ;  in  part  it  was  due  to  Ros- 
setti's  fluctuating  finances  and  unconquerable  inabil- 
ity to  hoard,  whatever  the  inducement ;  in  part  also 
it  was  undoubtedly  due  to  his  procrastinating  tem- 
perament, and  hesitation  in  changing  the  habitual 
groove  in  which  he  moved.  "Why  does  he  not 
marry  her !"  wrote  Madox  Brown  in  1855  ;  and  in 
the  same  year  Ruskin  wrote,  apparently  in  reply  to 
an  appeal  for  advice  from  Rossetti :  "  I  have  had  no 
time  yet  to  think  over  your  letter ;  but  my  feeling  at 
the  first  reading  is  that  it  would  be  best  for  you  to 
marry,  for  the  sake  of  giving  Miss  Siddal  complete 
protection  and  care,  and  putting  an  end  to  the  pe- 
culiar sadness  and  want  of  you  hardly  know  what, 
that  there  is  in  both  of  you." 

The  following  year,  again,  Madox  Brown  recorded 
a  night  spent  in  "  Gabriel's  "  company  listening  until 
half-past  three  in  the  morning  to  his  plans  for  getting 
married  "  and  then  off  to  Algeria  ! " 


75 

So  matters  drifted  without  too  much  comfort  for 
either  of  the  lovers.  That  Rossetti  was  indifferent 
is  the  last  thing  to  be  conjectured.  His  brother  de- 
scribes him  as  "  a  lover  of  boundless  enthusiasm  and 
fondness.  He  made  no  secret  of  his  condition  in  the 
close  circle  of  his  nearer  intimates.  To  all  other  per- 
sons he  wrapped  himself  in  impenetrable  silence,  not 
without  some  defiant  tone ;  and  he  employed  pet 
names  for  his  fair  one,  of  which  Guggum,  Guggums, 
or  Gug,  was  the  most  frequent  if  not  the  most  eupho- 
nious. "  Some  of  his  manifestations  of  Romeo  ardour 
were  quite  as  absurd  as  this  ridiculous  and  highly 
characteristic  diminutive  "Guggum,"  which  he  found 
pleasure  in  murmuring  over  and  again  to  himself  at 
his  work.  His  anger  flamed  up  readily  at  any  slight, 
real  or  fancied,  to  Miss  Siddal,  and  the  fertility  of  his 
imagination  gave  him  many  bad  quarter-hours.  He 
was  at  odds  on  one  occasion  with  Mrs.  Madox  Brown 
for  the  crime  of  "  doing  "  him  out  of  an  hour  of  Miss 
Siddal's  society;  on  another  occasion  there  was  a  cool- 
ness between  him  and  Christina  because  the  latter 
was  not  adequately  impressed  by  Miss  Siddal  ;  and 
Stephens,  the  P.-R:B.,  fell  into  disfavour  "through 
speaking  irreverentially  on  the  subject  of  Guggum." 
All  this  was  part  of  the  mingled  boyishness  and  sensi- 
bility that  made  him  all  his  life,  and  notably  during 
these  years  between  youth  and  maturity,  anything  but 
soothing  to  these  who  became,  despite  themselves, 
more  or  less  absorbed  in  his  doings  and  at  the  mercy 
of  his  comings  and  goings.  The  unconventionality 


76  Gbe  IRossettte. 

of  his  temperament  soared  to  heights  of  fantastic 
conduct  that  showed  nerves  at  high  tension  long  be- 
fore drug  or  sorrow  had  affected  them.  His  brother 
records  his  propensity  for  doing  whatever  he  liked 
"  simply  because  he  liked  it,  and  without  any  self- 
accommodation  to  what  other  people  might  like  in- 
stead." Thus,  although  according  to  the  same 
authority  he  "  neither  drank  nor  gambled  nor  betted 
nor  smoked  nor  amused  himself  in  any  rough  and 
ready  manner,"  he  was  a  disturbing  as  well  as  enliv- 
ening element  in  the  lives  of  his  friends.  Madox 
Brown  describes  with  fervour  a  visit  from  him,  made 
during  the  early  stages  of  his  famous  "  calf  picture," 
when  he  shared  Brown's  restricted  quarters  to  be 
near  a  calf  and  a  cart  of  the  requisite  aspect.  After 
nearly  a  month  of  painting  with  endless  emendations 
and  no  perceptible  progress  from  day  to  day,  "  all  the 
time  he  wearing  my  overcoat,  which  I  want,  and  a 
pair  of  my  breeches,  besides  food  and  an  unlimited 
supply  of  turpentine,"  matters  approached  a  crisis. 
His  host  was  obliged  to  "tell  him  delicately  that  he 
must  go,"  or  else  go  home  at  night  by  the  'bus, 
which  he  considered  too  expensive,  or  else  ride  to 
his  work  in  the  morning  and  walk  home  at  night, 
which  he  said  he  should  never  think  of.  And  in  the 
end  he  went.  On  another  occasion  he  invited  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Brown  to  go  with  him  to  the  theatre,  on 
"orders,"  and  forgot  that  after  a  certain  hour  no  one 
could  get  in  without  paying  the  price  of  admission, 
which  his  guests  were  obliged  to  do  for  themselves, 


Found. 

Photographed  from  the  original,  with  isochromatic  plate, 
by  courtesy  of  Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr. 


BflBHB 


SifcfcaL  77 

he  being  in  an  impecunious  state.  At  still  another 
time  he  invited  the  Browns  to  dine  at  his  house, 
"and  never  came  home,  of  course."  These  are  fair 
examples  of  the  entire  disregard  of  the  preferences 
and  frequently  of  the  rights  of  others  characterising 
Rossetti  in  the  practical  affairs  of  life.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  even  Miss  Siddal  complained  of  his  "ab- 
surd goings-on."  What  is,  perhaps,  surprising,  is 
the  fact  that  his  friends  clung  to  him  as  they  did, 
Madox  Brown  declaring  him  at  his  worst  "  never 
quite  unpleasant  nor  ever  unbearable,"  and  Watts- 
Dunton,  who  knew  him  only  in  later  years  when 
health  and  courage  both  were  broken,  finding  in 
him  "an  irresistible  charm  "  that  made  him  "a  more 
fascinating  companion  than  almost  any  other  man 
could  have  been  in  the  most  brilliant  health  and' 
spirits. "  A  partial  explanation  of  such  contradictions 
may  lie  in  his  tacit  assumption  that  all  men  regarded 
friendship  as  he  did,  and  would  count  it  disloyalty 
not  merely  to  decline,  but  to  fail  to  run  after  the 
chance  of  being  generous.  On  the  very  pages  that 
narrate  his  various  misdeeds  we  read  the  other  story: 
his  readiness  in  time  of  need,  his  delight  in  furthering 
the  fortunes  of  painters  who  might  have  been  con- 
sidered rivals,  his  liberal  grace  in  the  manner  of  giv- 
ing, his  entire  freedom  from  small-mindedness  and 
vulgarity.  He  loved  nothing  so  little  as  a  hesitating 
response  to  the  call  of  a  friend  in  trouble. 

His  attitude  in  such  a  case  is  well  shown  by  an 
anecdote  told  by  Mr.  Hughes.     "  It  was  from  Munro 


78  Gbe  IRossettis. 

I  had  the  story, "  he  says,  * '  that  D.  G.  R. ,  having  spent 
his  honeymoon  and  all  his  money  in  Paris,  was  re- 
turning, when  he  read  in  a  paper  he  got  on  the  way, 
of  the  sudden  death  of  a  friend  (not  a  great  friend  at 
all,  I  think),  a  writer  named  Brough,  one  of  the  class 
of  which  James  Hannay  was  a  prominent  type  —  a 
young  man  with  a  wife  and  two  little  children.  Ros- 
setti  knew  that  ways  and  means  would  be  doubly  de- 
ficient to  the  widow  in  such  circumstances.  He  had 
spent  all  his  own  now ;  but  a  certain  portion  of  that 
existed  in  jewelry  upon  Mrs.  Rossetti,  who  no  doubt 
fully  sympathised  with  the  trouble  in  question,  so  that 
when  they  reached  London  they  did  not  go  straight 
home,  but  drove  first  to  a  pawnbroker,  and  then  to 
the  Brough  lodgings,  and  after  that  home,  with  en- 
tirely empty  pockets  but  I  expect  two  very  full  hearts." 

And  if  he  was  generous  with  money,  which  he 
knew  quite  well  how  to  get,  but  valued  only  for  the 
delight  of  parting  with  it,  he  was  even  more  generous 
with  time  and  effort,  on  which  he  put  a  higher  price. 
An  entry  in  Madox  Brown's  diary  for  1856  records  a 
different  impression  from  the  rueful  complaint  of 
misused  hospitality  the  year  before. 

" Gabriel  got  Elliot,"  he  says,  "a  parson  who 
writes  for  the  Daily  News,  and  the  editor  to  come  and 
see  my  pictures  and  has  been  at  the  trouble  of  writ- 
ing a  long  article  on  them  for  that  journal  —  Really 
Gabriel  seems  bent  upon  making  my  fortune  at  one 
blow.  Never  did  fellow,  I  think,  so  bestir  himself 
for  a  rival  before  ;  it  is  very  good  and  very  great  to 


Sifcfcal  79 

act  so.  Ever  since  he  has  felt  he  had  hurt  me  some 
little  time  ago  he  has  done  nothing  but  keep  on  mak- 
ing amends  to  me,  one  after  another.  As  Carlyle 
says  of  Mirabeau,  how  much  easier  it  is  to  note  the 
flaws  in  a  circle  than  to  grasp  the  whole  sweep  of  its 
circumference." 

Toward  Miss  Siddal  Rossetti  seems  to  have  acted 
much  as  he  did  toward  his  friends  in  general,  al- 
though there  is  nothing  to  show  specific  lack  of  con- 
sideration in  any  records  of  his  conduct,  and  certainly 
no  hint  of  caprice  or  change  in  his  affection  for  her. 
Year  after  year  during  their  long  engagement  he  was 
harassed  by  anxiety  concerning  her  health,  fears  for 
the  future,  and  sympathy  with  sufferings  which  all  his 
impetuous  kindness  was  powerless  to  alleviate.  .  .  . 
He  had  frequently  to  find  prompt  means  of  supplying 
her  with  money  for  the  trips  to  other  climates  de- 
manded by  her  condition,  and  on  one  occasion  he 
painted  a  picture  composed  in  three  compartments 
(the  Francesco,  da  Rimini  of  1855)  in  a  week,  working 
day  and  night,  to  get  thirty-five  guineas  to  relieve 
the  penniless  condition  in  which  she  found  herself  at 
Paris  en  route  to  Nice.  There  are  indications  that  she, 
like  himself,  was  no  adept  in  the  art  of  managing 
funds,  and  Ruskin  (who  bought  the  picture)  writes 
with  reference  to  this  episode,  "  You  are  such  absurd 
creatures  both  of  you.  I  don't  say  you  do  wrong, 
because  you  don't  seem  to  know  what  is  wrong,  but 
just  do  whatever  you  like  as  far  as  possible  —  as 
puppies  and  tomtits  do." 


8o  Gbe  iRossettis. 

Had  it  not  been  for  Ruskin  the  course  of  Rosset- 
ti's  true  love  would  have  run  far  more  turbulently 
than  it  did.  The  friendship  between  the  two  men 
is  unique  in  some  of  its  phases,  and  a  history  in 
small  of  Ruskin's  temperament  and  methods.  They 
met  in  1854,  Ruskin  inspired  to  call  upon  Rossetti 
by  seeing  the  water-colour  called  Dante  Drawing  an 
Angel  in  Memory  of  Beatrice  which  a  dealer  by  the 
name  of  MacCracken  had  recently  bought.  "  He 
seems,"  Rossetti  wrote,  "in  a  mood  to  make  my 
fortune,"  and  he  was,  in  fact,  prompt  to  assume  the 
role  described  by  Mr.  Marillier  as  "  a  curious  com- 
bination of  patron,  friend,  and  mentor,  not  a  little 
suggestive  of  the  benevolent  god  in  the  background 
of  a  classical  drama."  Rossetti  was  dining  with 
him  at  Camberwell  when  summoned  to  his  father's 
death-bed,  and  Ruskin's  letter  of  sympathy  is  the 
first  of  a  long  and  interesting  series  marking  the 
growth,  and  unfortunately  the  decline,  of  intimacy. 
In  this  letter  are  mentioned  the  gift  to  Rossetti  of  all 
Ruskin's  writings,  pleasure  at  the  suggestion  of  a 
drawing  from  Rossetti  in  acknowledgment,  and  a 
commission  for  another  drawing,  to  be  paid  for  with 
fifteen  guineas.  All  the  notes  were  struck  at  once, 
—  appreciation  of  Rossetti's  "very  noble  powers," 
the  desire,  never  very  far  from  Ruskin's  heart,  to 
bestow  and  to  make  happy,  the  hint  of  supreme 
confidence  in  his  own  ability  to  judge  of  art,  and 
throughout  the  joy  of  copartnership  with  genius, 
with  unacknowledged  and  unrewarded  genius  re- 


flM0s  Sitoal  8 1 

served  for  him  to  acknowledge  and  reward.  These 
elements,  fused  by  a  great  magnanimity  and  kind- 
ness of  heart,  made  a  sentiment  supremely  Ruskin- 
ian  in  quality,  to  which  Rossetti  responded,  and 
which  did  not  seem  to  him,  he  being  a  giver  himself 
and  whole-hearted  in  his  sympathies,  so  extraordin- 
ary as  it  might  seem  to  the  average  person  of  sensible 
and  selfish  motives. 

The  ground  once  broken,  Ruskin  pushed  on  with 
energy.  In  1855  he  made  a  proposal  —  set  in  a 
framework  of  jewel-like  words  and  charming  per- 
suasive arguments  —  that  Rossetti  should  paint  for 
him  regularly,  up  to  a  certain  value,  thus  insuring 
a  small  but  comfortable  income  in  place  of  doubtful 
returns  from  a  capricious  if  not  wholly  unappreci- 
ative  public.  This  arrangement  or  something  like 
it  was  duly  carried  out,  both  Rossetti  and  Ruskin 
bearing  themselves  for  a  long  time  gallantly  in  the 
somewhat  difficult  position  they  thus  assumed  to- 
ward each  other.  The  prices  put  upon  the  paint- 
ings were  very  moderate  and  were  frequently  raised 
by  Ruskin  five  or  ten  pounds  above  Rossetti's 
valuation.  For  this  fine  generosity  Ruskin  had  at 
least  the  amusement  —  and  perhaps  it  should  not 
have  been  grudged  him  —  of  pulling  Rossetti's  pic- 
tures to  pieces  when  he  chose,  of  teaching  him  with 
the  kindest  and  most  amiable  didacticism  how  they 
might  be  improved,  of  criticising,  with  entire  good- 
nature and  a  humorous  touch,  his  disorderly  habits, 
his  dilly-dallying  ways,  his  nervous  impulses, 


6 


82  Gbe  iRossettis. 

11  sticking  pins  into  him, "to  use  Rossetti's  own  phrase, 
"for  a  couple  of  hours  every  three  days."  A  man 
of  even  less  independence  of  thought  and  less  way- 
wardness in  action  might  have  found  this  friendly 
pestering  disconcerting,  and  Rossetti  certainly  found 
it  so.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  had  a  just  enough 
idea  of  the  obligation  involved  in  the  acceptance 
of  so  much  kindness  to  have  accepted  in  a  spirit 
of  affectionate  banter  criticisms  that  from  others 
he  would  probably  have  met  with  vigorous  resent- 
ment. Although  the  intimate  relation  subsided 
after  a  period  of  years,  there  was  in  it  at  least  no  dis- 
coverable trace  of  self-complacent  patronage  on  the 
one  side  or  ignoble  sycophancy  on  the  other.  Both 
men  were  eminently  self-respecting  and  pre-emin- 
ently sincere,  and  Ruskin  comes  near  to  justifying 
the  more  complimentary  portion  of  his  own  remark- 
able description  of  himself  given  in  an  early  letter 
to  Rossetti :  "  I  am,"  he  says,  "  very  self-indulgent, 
very  proud,  very  obstinate,  and  very  resentful  :  on 
the  other  side,  I  am  very  upright — nearly  as  just 
as  I  suppose  it  is  possible  for  man  to  be  in  this  world 
—  exceedingly  fond  of  making  people  happy,  and 
devotedly  reverent  to  all  true  mental  or  moral  power. 
I  never  betrayed  a  trust — never  wilfully  did  an  un- 
kind thing — and  never,  in  little  or  large  matters, 
depreciated  another  that  I  might  raise  myself.  I 
believe  I  once  had  affections  as  warm  as  most  peo- 
ple ;  but  partly  from  evil  chance  and  partly  from 
foolish  misplacing  of  them,  they  have  got  tumbled 


Sifcfcal.  83 

down  and  broken  to  pieces.  It  is  a  very  great, 
in  the  long  run  the  greatest,  misfortune  of  my  life 
that  on  the  whole,  my  relations,  cousins  and  so 
forth,  are  persons  with  whom  I  can  have  no  sympa- 
thy, and  that  circumstances  have  always  somehow 
or  another  kept  me  out  of  the  way  of  the  people 
of  whom  I  could  have  made  friends.  So  that  I  have 
no  friendships  and  no  loves. 

"Now  you  know  the  best  and  worst  of  me  ;  and 
you  may  rely  upon  it  it  is  the  truth.  If  you  hear 
people  say  I  am  utterly  hard  and  cold,  depend  upon 
it  it  is  untrue.  Though  I  have  no  friendships  and  no 
loves  I  cannot  read  the  epitaph  of  the  Spartans  at 
Thermopylae  with  a  steady  voice  to  the  end  ;  and 
there  is  an  old  glove  in  one  of  my  drawers  that  has 
lain  there  these  eighteen  years,  which  is  worth 
something  to  me  yet.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you 
ever  feel  disposed  to  think  me  particularly  good,  you 
will  be  just  as  wrong  as  most  people  are  on  the 
other  side.  My  pleasures  are  in  seeing,  thinking, 
reading,  and  making  people  happy  (if  I  can  consist- 
ently with  my  own  comfort).  And  I  take  these 
pleasures.  And  I  suppose,  if  my  pleasures  were  in 
smoking,  betting,  dicing,  and  giving  pain,  I  should 
take  those  pleasures.  It  seems  to  me  that  one  man  is 
made  one  way,  and  one  another — the  measure  of  effort 
and  self-denial  can  never  be  known,  except  by  each 
conscience  to  itself.  Mine  is  small  enough." 

Of  the  author  of  such  a  letter  and  of  the  gracious 
actions  preluded  by  and  necessitating  such  letters, 


84  Gbe  TRo00etti0. 

may  well  be  said  what  Mr.  Brownell  has  written  of 
him,  that  "in  the  pursuit  of  saintliness,  measure 
had  no  interest  for  him." 

This  saintliness  was  almost  immediately  extended 
to  cover  Miss  Siddal  as  well  as  Rossetti.  Early  in 
1855  Ruskin  bought  all  her  drawings,  declaring  that 
they  went  ahead  of  Rossetti's  own,  which,  according 
to  Madox  Brown,  was  "  like  Ruskin,  the  incarnation 
of  exaggeration."  Soon  after  he  proposed  to  her  a 
choice  of  two  plans,  by  one  of  which  he  was  to  buy 
everything  she  did  as  fast  as  she  did  it,  and  by  the 
other  of  which  he  was  to  settle  upon  her  a  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  a  year  and  to  have  all  that  she  did 
up  to  that  sum.  The  second  plan  was  adopted, 
and  by  means  of  it  while  it  lasted  Miss  Siddal  was 
able  to  take  far  better  care  of  her  health  than  she 
otherwise  could  have  done,  in  itself  enough  to  burn 
gratitude  into  Rossetti's  soul,  and  spur  him  out  of 
the  selfishness  in  small  things  that  marred  a  nature 
of  large  generosity  and  deep  loyalty.  That  it  failed 
somewhat  of  this,  and  that  Ruskin  had  occasion  to 
complain,  albeit  rather  childishly,  of  feeling  himself 
outside  of  the  stronger  affections  at  least  of  the  two 
people  who  owed  so  much  of  their  happiness  and 
comfort  to  him,  is  one  of  the  uncomfortable  circum- 
stances with  which  a  biographer  of  Rossetti  has  to 
deal.  "  I  fancy,"  Ruskin  wrote  to  him  in  a  mood  of 
depression,  "  I  fancy  I  gall  you  by  my  want  of  sym- 
pathy in  many  things,  and  so  lose  hold  of  you." 
And  undoubtedly  he  did.  Moreover  his  attitude, 


flMs0  Sftbal  85 

kind  and  generous  as  it  was,  was  not,  as  we  have 
said,  very  different  from  Rossetti's  own  attitude, 
limited  by  his  opportunities,  toward  everyone  about 
him  who  had  pictures  to  sell  and  needed  money  and 
appreciation  ;  nor  did  Rossetti  on  his  part  ask  love, 
gratitude,  or  anything  else  in  return.  The  methods 
of  the  latter  were  as  interesting  as  they  were  charit- 
able. He  could  give  the  appreciation  lavishly  enough ; 
the  money  he  could  not  give  as  lavishly,  but  he  did 
not  hesitate  to  enlist  the  services  of  those  who  had 
it.  Madox  Brown  speaks  of  his  going  to  a  Suffolk 
Street  exhibition  and  finding  there  the  picture  of  a 
butcher-boy,  by  some  unknown  young  artist,  which 
struck  him  as  uncommonly  worthy.  "  He  not  only 
tried  to  get  Ruskin  and  Boyd  to  purchase  it,"  Brown 
records,  "but  got  Dallas  to  give  it  a  good  notice  in 
the  Times,  and  would  have  done  the  Lord  knows 
what  for  the  man  had  it  been  in  his  power.  1  could 
narrate  a  hundred  instances  of  the  most  noble  and 
disinterested  conduct  towards  his  art-rivals  which 
places  him  far  above  others  in  his  greatness  of  soul, 
and  yet  he  will,  on  the  most  trivial  occasion,  hate 
and  backbite  anyone  who  gives  him  offence."  This 
helps  to  explain  the  suggestion  of  ingratitude  in  his 
too  indifferent  manner  toward  Ruskin,  his  unwilling- 
ness, as  the  latter  puts  it,  "to  put  on  a  dressing- 
gown  and  run  in  for  a  minute  rather  than  not  see 
him,  or  paint  on  a  picture  in  an  unsightly  state, 
rather  than  not  amuse  him  when  he  was  ill."  Ros- 
setti's theory  was  obviously  that  a  visible  need 


86  Gbe  IRossettis. 

demanded  an  immediate  relief,  and  it  did  not  matter 
much  from  whom  the  relief  came,  himself  or  an- 
other, so  long  as  it  came  promptly  and  ungrudg- 
ingly. He  gave  and  took  all  his  life,  and  while  he 
was  abundantly  willing  to  acknowledge  in  Ruskin's 
case  the  indebtedness  he  was  under  and  to  meet  him 
in  a  manly  fashion  on  all  important  questions,  he 
either  did  not  feel  enough  at  home  with  him  or  did 
not  like  him  quite  well  enough  to  repay  him  with 
the  small  sacrifices  that  would  have  pleased  him,  and 
apparently  he  felt  no  special  obligation  to  make  the 
effort.  In  the  case  of  Madox  Brown,  whose  unfriend- 
liness with  Ruskin  was  a  thorn  in  Rossetti's  side, 
there  was  a  very  different  sentiment,  and  of  lifelong 
endurance,  with  more  freedom,  more  ups  and  downs, 
more  reciprocity.  "\i you  can  disregard,"  Rossetti 
writes  to  him  on  one  occasion,  "  as  I  know  you  do, 
the  great  obligations  under  which  you  have  laid  me 
in  early  life  and  which  were  real  ones,  as  involving 
real  troubles  to  yourself  undertaken  for  the  sake  of 
one  who  was  quite  a  stranger  to  you  at  the  outset — 
what  can  /  think  of  a  matter  which  gives  me  no 
trouble  whatever,  and  in  which,  were  I  inactive,  I 
should  sin  against  affection,  gratitude,  and,  highest 
of  all,  conviction  as  an  artist." 

After  Rossetti's  marriage  to  Miss  Siddal  (on  the 
2  }rd  of  May,  1860)  they  settled  down  at  14  Chatham 
Place,  Blackfriars  Bridge,  where  he  had  for  some 
years  rented  chambers.  To  gain  additional  room 
he  took  also  the  second  floor  of  the  house  adjoining, 


Sibfcal.  87 

and  had  doors  cut  through  to  make  it  like  a  modern 
apartment.  Here  they  lived  gaily  enough  except  for 
the  unremitting  anxiety  caused  by  the  matter  of 
health.  "  Married  life,"  Mr.  William  Rossetti  truly 
says,  "cannot  be  exactly  happy  when  one  of  the 
spouses  is  perpetually  and  grievously  ill.  Affection- 
ate and  tender  it  may  be,  but  not  happy  ;  indeed  the 
very  affection  bars  the  possibility  of  happiness." 

Their  way  of  living,  so  much  criticised  by  Mr. 
Bell  Scott,  with  its  odd  bachelor  freedom  and  irreg- 
ular hours,  was  nevertheless  well  suited  to  their 
tastes,  and  they  managed  in  one  way  and  another 
to  pilfer  a  number  of  small  delights  from  the  miserly 
Fate  that  ruled  them.  Not  the  least  of  these  was 
the  decoration  of  their  rooms,  one  of  which  was 
"completely  hung  round  with  Lizzie's  drawings." 
For  another  room  Rossetti  made  a  wall-paper  design 
of  tall  trees  with  fruit,  to  be  printed  on  brown  or 
blue  paper,  in  rich  tones  of  Venetian  red,  black,  and 
yellow.  "  We  have  got  our  rooms  quite  jolly  now," 
he  wrote  to  William  Allingham.  ' '  Our  drawing-room 
is  a  beauty,  I  assure  you,  already.  ...  .  I  should 
like  you  to  see  how  nice  they  are  and  how  many 
nice  things  we  have  got  in  them." 

At  this  period  of  his  life  Rossetti  is  reported  "a 
thorough  cockney "  in  his  tastes,  liking  nothing 
better  than  wandering  through  the  streets  of  London, 
delighting  in  London  slang,  and  fond  of  investigating 
all  the  amusements  of  the  lower  classes.  "Many  a 
night,"  writes  Mr.  Val  Prinsep,  "during  the  years 


IRossettte. 

'58,  '59,  and  '60,  have  I  been  his  companion  in  these 
wanderings."  On  one  occasion  they  went  together 
to  a  sparring  benefit  at  the  Rotunda  Theatre  in  the 
Blackfriars  Road.  "  Rossetti  was  no  sportsman  and 
nothing  of  a  bruiser,"  Mr.  Prinsep  says,  "but  he 
wanted  to  see  it  and  I  took  him."  "  1  recollect,"  he 
continues,  "our  being  shown  on  to  the  stage,  where 
we  took  our  places  among  a  lot  of  sporting  *  bungs,' 
an  evidence  of  about  as  low  an  audience  as  could  be 
found  even  in  London.  Rossetti  reclined  on  his 
chair  and  hummed  to  himself  in  his  usual  absent 
manner  as  he  looked  at  the  roughs  around  him. 
Possibly  the  grim  scene  reminded  him  of  the  Inferno 
of  his  namesake,  Dante.  Pair  after  pair  of  young 
fellows  stood  up,  sparred,  received  more  or  less 
'gruel,'  and  retired  after  their  three  rounds.  Pre- 
sently there  stepped  forward  a  negro.  After  his 
round  he  sat  in  his  corner  and  was  attended  to  by 
his  friends,  who  fanned  and  otherwise  refreshed  him. 
While  he  was  being  fanned  the  '  nigger '  assumed  a 
seraphic  expression  which  was  most  comic.  '  Look  ! ' 
cried  Rossetti,  in  a  loud  voice,  '  Uncle  Tom  aspiring 
to  heaven,  by  Jove  ! '  The  whole  house  '  rose  '  with 
delight.  One  of  the  *  patrons '  seated  by  us  wanted 
to  stand  us  a  pint  apiece." 

From  such  scenes  of  this  mixed  world  which  he 
was  well  enough  pleased  with,  Rossetti  turned  to 
gratify  another  side  of  his  contradictory  but  always 
eager  temperament  by  drawing  exquisite  pictures  of 
his  wife,  "  more  beautifully,  perfectly,  and  tenderly," 


89 

Ruskin  says,  than  he  ever  drew  from  anyone  else  at 
any  moment  in  his  career. 

Mrs.  Rossetti's  health  was  hardly  equal  to  the 
nocturnal  rambles ;  though  she  and  her  husband 
were  fond  of  going  out  for  their  meals  wherever  and 
whenever  the  fancy  struck  them,  and  their  habits 
chimed  well  together.  To  some  extent  she  continued 
her  own  drawing  after  their  marriage.  ''Her  last 
designs,"  Rossetti  wrote  to  Allingham  in  the  autumn 
of  1860,  "would,  I  am  sure,  surprise  and  delight 
you,  and  I  hope  she  is  going  to  do  better  than  ever 
now.  I  feel  surer  every  time  she  works  that  she  has 
real  genius  —  none  of  your  make-believe  —  in  con- 
ception and  colour,  and  if  she  can  only  add  a  little 
more  of  the  precision  in  carrying  out  which  it  so 
much  needs  health  and  strength  to  attain,  she  will, 
I  am  sure,  paint  such  pictures  as  no  woman  painted 
yet.  But  it  is  no  use  hoping  for  too  much." 

Very  little  hope  indeed  proved  too  much.  In  the 
spring  of  1861,  a  child  was  born  that  did  not  live. 
During  the  following  months  her  health,  already  so 
frail,  steadily  declined.  One  of  her  most  distressing 
symptoms  was  a  form  of  neuralgia  for  which  her 
physician  prescribed  laudanum.  On  the  loth  of 
February,  1862,  she  dined  with  her  husband  and 
Mr.  Swinburne  at  the  Sabloniere  Hotel  in  Leicester 
Square.  She  and  Rossetti  returned  early,  and  Ros- 
setti left  her  to  give  his  lecture  at  the  Working  Men's 
College.  When  he  reached  home  again  he  found 
her  unconscious  from  an  overdose  of  the  laudanum. 


90  £be  IRossettis. 

At  twenty  minutes  past  seven  the  following  morning 
she  died.  Thus  the  brief  period  of  Rossetti's  mar- 
ried life  ended. 

In  losing  his  wife  he  lost  also  the  loveliest  of 
his  models.  In  the  picture  Beata  Beatrix,  painted  a 
year  after  her  death,  we  see  her  face  spiritualised  by 
its  expression  of  pure  and  exquisite  repose  ;  a  me- 
morial the  more  tender  and  beautiful  that  it  conveys 
to  the  public  no  idea  of  its  true  inspiration,  but  rests 
upon  its  connection  with  Dante's  Beatrice.  Rossetti 
himself  thus  describes  it  in  a  letter : 

"  The  picture  illustrates  the  Vita  Nuova,  embody- 
ing symbolically  the  death  of  Beatrice  as  treated  in 
that  work.  The  picture  is  not  intended  at  all  to 
represent  death,  but  to  render  it  under  the  semblance 
of  a  trance,  in  which  Beatrice,  seated  at  a  balcony 
overlooking  the  city,  is  suddenly  rapt  from  earth  to 
heaven. 

"You  will  remember  how  Dante  dwells  on  the 
desolation  of  the  city  in  connection  with  the  incident 
of  her  death,  and  for  this  reason  I  have  introduced  it 
as  my  background,  and  made  the  figures  of  Dante 
and  Love  passing  through  the  street  and  gazing  om- 
inously on  one  another,  conscious  of  the  event ; 
while  the  bird,  a  messenger  of  death,  drops  the 
poppy  between  the  hands  of  Beatrice.  She,  through 
her  shut  lids,  is  conscious  of  a  new  world,  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  last  words  of  the  Vita  Nuova, — That 
blessed  Beatrice  who  now  gazeth  continually  on  His 
countenance  qui  est  per  omnia  scecula  benedictus." 


Beata  Beatrix. 


Sifcbal  91 

On  the  frame  of  the  picture  are  the  words  from  Jere- 
miah uttered  by  Dante  when  Beatrice's  death  had 
"  despoiled  the  city  of  all  dignity  "  :  "  Quomodo  sedet 
sola  civitas."  To  have  indulged  in  any  exuberance 
of  sentiment  concerning  a  work  in  which  he  had 
preserved  the  most  profound  associations  of  his  life 
would  not  have  been  Rossetti ;  but  the  flawless 
charm  of  the  upturned  face,  surrounded  by  its  glory 
of  red-gold  hair,  speaks  much  more  eloquently  than 
words  of  the  mood  of  the  painter  toward  his  subject. 


CHAPTER  V. 
THE  MIDDLE  YEARS. 

UP  to  the  date  we  have  now  reached  Rossetti's 
works  show  great  variety.  It  was  the  ' '  first 
free  running  "  of  the  wine,  and  the  years 
between  1850  and  1863  may  justifiably  be  called  the 
years  of  his  splendour  and  vigour  as  a  painter.  Dur- 
ing this  period  his  dramatic  invention  was  at  its 
height,  and  his  colour  was  brilliant  without  the  hot 
tones  that  came  into  it  later.  "  Many  of  the  little 
picturesof  this  time,"  Mr.  Sidney  Colvinsays,  "flash 
and  glow  like  jewels  or  the  fragments  of  some  gor- 
geous painted  window."  He  was  nourishing  his 
mind  on  the  Bible,  on  Dante,  on  Browning,  and  on 
the  Arthurian  Legends,  and  from  these  sources  he 
drew  an  inspiration  at  once  more  virile  and  more 
tender  than  the  personal  inspiration  of  his  later  pic- 
tures. Before  he  had  begun  to  paint  at  all  he  had 
drawn  some  complicated  designs  illustrative  of  vari- 
ous themes  suggested  by  his  reading,  and  as  early  as 
1849  he  started  an  elaborate  composition  based  on  a 

line    from   Pippa   Passes  ("Hist!    said    Kate    the 

92 


flMtole  l?ear$.  93 

Queen  "),  which  he  cut  up,  and  parts  of  which  he 
sold  as  late  as  1865.  In  the  same  year  he  painted  a 
remarkable  little  water-colour  from  Browning's  poem 
The  Laboratory  —  probably  his  first  attempt  in  the 
medium  so  triumphantly  mastered  by  him  in  after  life. 
It  is  painted  over  the  pen-and-ink  in  which  the  de- 
sign is  drawn,  is  "brilliant  and  striking  in  colour," 
and,  according  to  Mr.  Stephens,  reflects  the  influence 
of  the  Flemish  and  Italian  pictures  which  he  had  seen 
on  his  recent  trip  with  Holman  Hunt.  As  in  the 
picture  of  Dr.  Johnson  at  The  Mitre  made  eleven 
years  later,  the  types  have  nothing  at  all  in  common 
with  the  sensitive  spiritual  types  of  his  other  early 
drawings  or  the  impassioned,  sensuous  types  of  his 
later  work.  They  are  good,  solid  flesh  and  blood, 
and  the  expressions  are  those  of  strong,  violent  hu- 
man emotions,  far  removed  from  the  romance  and 
revery  to  which  his  hand  was  commonly  subdued. 

He  made  at  this  time  innumerable  designs  for 
pictures,  some  of  which  were  never  carried  out, 
while  others  were  carried  out  again  and  again  in 
crayon,  in  water-colour,  and  in  oil.  Many  if  not 
most  of  his  later  pictures  were  planned,  Mr.  Marillier 
says,  during  these  earliest  days  of  restless,  energetic 
interests.  He  frequently  seemed  to  such  friends  as 
the  faithfully  industrious  Brown  to  be  "  working  very 
hard  and  doing  nothing,"  "  diffuse  and  inconse- 
quent" in  his  methods,  dashing  off  in  the  midst  of 
work,  for  which  a  definite  commission  had  been 
given,  to  carry  out  a  sudden  idea  involving  much 


94  Gbe  IRoesettte. 

time  and  trouble,  painting,  discussing,  and  arguing 
his  liveliest  in  the  hours  between  midnight  and  the 
dawn,  translating  sonnets  at  breakfast,  and  "  making 
the  whole  place  miserable"  indeed  for  those  who 
yearned  after  "  moderate  tasks  and  moderate  leisure, 
quiet  living,  strict-kept  measure,"  in  their  professional 
routine.  But  with  all  this  apparent  indecision  and 
prodigality  in  experiment,  Rossetti  was  very  tena- 
cious of  his  ideas,  and  capable  of  renewing  a  train  of 
thought  or  impression  after  long  interruption.  In 
this  sense  he  was  not  inconsequent  but  concentrated. 
His  first  conception  of  a  picture  held  a  mature  idea 
from  which  he  did  not  usually  depart,  despite  his  fre- 
quent changes  in  matters  of  detail.  One  reason  for 
his  proverbial  dilatoriness  was  undoubtedly  his  "dif- 
fuse "  manner  of  working,  which  permitted  much  in- 
terruption to  the  principal  matters  in  hand ;  but 
another  reason  lay  in  the  exacting  demand  he  made 
upon  himself  to  realise  his  ideal.  ' '  With  me  progress 
always  is  and  always  will  be  gradual  in  everything," 
he  wrote  in  1853;  and  again,  "  I  shall  never,  I  suppose, 
get  over  the  weakness  of  making  a  thing  as  good  as 
I  can  manage,  and  must  take  to  charging  on  that 
principle. "  This  meant  that  when  he  proposed  to  do 
a  drawing  for  thirty-five  guineas,  he  put  so  much 
thought  and  work  on  it  before  he  called  it  finished  as 
to  make  it  worth  much  more  by  his  own  scale  of  val- 
uation. Even  the  rude  little  drawings  for  pictures 
never  painted  are  striking  for  a  certain  completeness 
of  suggestion  which  they  convey.  They  show  that 


rtMfcWe  H)ear0.  95 

the  idea  was  clearly  defined  before  the  pencil  began 
its  work,  and  the  next  process  was  not  to  prune  away 
irrelevant  forms  and  details,  but  to  add  embellish- 
ment to  embellishment  until  the  composition  be- 
came sumptuous  with  lavish  and  always  significant 
decoration. 

When  Holman  Hunt  had  taken  Rossetti  in  hand 
to  rescue  him  from  bottle-painting,  he  had  mapped 
out  this  plan  of  work  for  him  :  He  was  to  take  a 
drawing  in  which  the  idea  was  thus  full-grown,  and 
draw  it  to  a  large  scale  on  a  large  canvas.  Then  he 
was  to  paint  around  the  figures  a  setting  of  vines, 
flowers,  or  still-life  drawn  conscientiously  from  na- 
ture or  from  models.  This  became  his  habit  and, 
like  most  of  his  habits,  was  of  long  continuance. 
He  seldom  painted  even  a  single  figure  that  was  not 
surrounded  by  flowers,  or  decorative  accessories, 
and  in  some  of  his  pictures,  the  Lilith  for  example, 
and  the  Joan  of  Arc,  the  beauty  of  the  lilies,  roses, 
jugs  and  vases,  and  of  the  superb  draperies  far  sur- 
passes the  beauty  of  the  flesh-painting.  In  spite  of 
the  many  glimpses  we  get  of  drawings  rushed 
through  in  a  single  night,  of  illustrations  brought  in 
"  at  the  last  gasp  of  time  "  to  exasperated  publishers, 
and  of  decorations  begun  without  any  knowledge 
of  the  technical  principles  involved,  indicating  that, 
as  Mr.  Layard  has  said,  he  was  "eaten  up  with  the 
impatience  of  genius,"  his  work  when  done  was  not 
scamped  or  slighted,  but  curiously,  elaborately,  and 
beautifully  wrought. 


96  Ebe  IRossettis. 

No  better  proof  of  this  can  be  found  than  is  fur- 
nished by  the  history  of  his  period  of  book  illustra- 
tion, one  of  the  several  excursions  from  his  usual 
path  made  during  these  executive  years.  His  first 
essay  was  in  1855,  a  woodcut  for  William  Ailing- 
ham's  Day  and  Night  Songs,  illustrating  The  Maids 
of  Elfen-Mere.  He  was  so  innocent  of  the  tricks  of 
the  engraver's  trade  at  first  as  not  to  reverse  the 
drawing  on  the  block,  but  he  made  a  charming 
design,  working  on  it  at  intervals  from  the  first 
"  scratches  for  its  arrangement "  in  the  August  of 
1854  until  the  spring  of  1855,  when  it  was  turned 
out  from  the  hands  of  the  engraver,  Dalziel,  "as 
hard  as  a  nail,  yet  flabby  and  vapid  to  the  last 
degree."  Mr.  Marillier  has  reproduced  one  of  the 
preparatory  drawings  as  well  as  the  illustration  in 
the  form  given  it  by  the  engraver,  and  while  a  cer- 
tain power  and  distinction  cannot  be  denied  to  the 
latter  it  is  easy  to  understand  Rossetti's  frank  fury  at 
its  aspect  in  contrast  with  the  sensitive  modelling 
and  gracious  line  of  the  drawing.  The  fault,  he 
admits,  may  be  in  a  measure  his  own, — "  not  of  de- 
ficient care,  for  I  took  the  very  greatest,  but  of 
over-elaboration  of  parts,  perplexing  them  for  the 
engraver."  The  engraver,  however,  had  not  always 
followed  his  line  where  it  was  clear,  and  the  result 
at  all  events  was  "a  conceited-looking  failure,"  and 
"such  an  incredible  mull"  that  it  "could  not  pos- 
sibly appear."  Mr.  Allingham  thought  differently 
and  urged  Rossetti  to  allow  it  to  be  used.  Finally 


The  Seed  of  David. 

Centre  of  Triptych,  Llandaff  Cathedral. 


flM&We  HJears.  97 

the  latter  consented,  reflecting  that  by  going  over  it 
carefully  and  cutting  out  lines  "the  human  character 
might  be  partially  substituted  for  the  oyster  and 
goldfish  cast  of  features,  and  other  desirable  changes 
effected."  Poor  Dalziel  seems  not  to  have  been  par- 
ticularly penitent,  and  asked  to  know  how  one  was 
to  engrave  a  drawing  that  was  partly  in  ink,  partly 
in  pencil,  and  partly  in  red  chalk  ! 

In  January,  1855,  just  as  the  Allingham  block  was 
ready  for  the  engraver,  Rossetti  received  a  propos- 
ition from  Moxon  to  do  some  of  the  designs  for 
the  illustrated  edition  of  Tennyson's  poems  which 
eventually  came  out  in  1857.  He  picked  out  for  his 
purpose  poems  on  which  one  could  "allegorise  on 
one's  own  hook,"  The  Palace  of  Art,  Mariana  in  the 
South,  The  Lady  of  Shalott,  and  Sir  Galahad,  and 
on  these  themes  he  certainly  "allegorised"  to  his 
heart's  desire.  The  woodcuts  were  not,  however, 
at  all  to  his  heart's  desire.  As  with  The  Maids  of 
Elfen-Mere,  he  took  infinite  pains,  only  to  find  his 
designs  —  so  "jolly  quaint,  but  very  lovely,"  accord- 
ing to  Madox  Brown  —  quite  different  from  his  idea 
of  what  they  should  be.  "These  engravers!"  he 
wrote  to  Allingham.  "What  ministers  of  wrath! 
Your  drawing  comes  to  them,  like  Agag,  delicately, 
and  is  hewn  in  pieces  before  the  Lord  Harry.  I 
took  more  pains  with  one  block  lately  than  I  had 
with  anything  for  a  long  while.  It  came  back  to 
me  on  paper  the  other  day,  with  Dalziel  performing 
his  cannibal  jig  in  the  corner  [his  signature  in  very 


98  Ebe  1Ro00etti0. 

irregular  letters],  and  I  have  really  felt  like  an  invalid 
ever  since.  As  yet,  I  fare  best  with  W.  J.  Linton. 
He  keeps  stomach-aches  for  you,  but  Dalziel  deals 
in  fevers  and  agues." 

The  design  for  The  Lady  of  Shalott  he  drew 
twice  over  for  the  sake  of  an  alteration,  and  "cor- 
rected, altered,  protested,  and  sent  blocks  back  to 
be  amended  "  until  not  only  engraver  but  publisher 
was  insane  with  worry.  It  passed  into  a  grim  jest 
that  "Rossetti  killed  Moxon,"  the  publisher  dying 
soon  after  the  publication  of  the  illustrated  Tennyson. 

In  this  passion  for  perfection  Rossetti  was  pro- 
foundly justified,  and  the  more  so,  in  these  cases, 
that  for  a  long  time  the  public  knew  his  work  almost 
solely  through  his  illustrations,  and  that  into  these 
illustrations  he  put  so  much  of  his  peculiar  distinc- 
tion and  charm  as  to  make  them  his  own  expres- 
sion much  more  than  an  expression  of  the  author's 
idea.  In  fact,  Tennyson  seen  through  Rossetti  is 
not  nearly  so  much  Tennyson  as  Rossetti  is  Ros- 
setti when  seen  through  Dalziel.  The  annoyances 
that  follow  such  inadequate  interpretation  as  he 
complained  of  are  demonstrated  by  the  construc- 
tion put  by  Mr.  Layard,  an  appreciative  student  of 
Rossetti's  work,  upon  the  drawing  of  St.  Cecily  for 
The  Palace  of  Art,  The  angel  in  this  drawing  is 
bending  over  St.  Cecily,  "seemingly  munching  the 
fair  face  of  the  lovely  martyr"  with  mouth  "wide 
open,"  he  thinks.  This  effect  is  produced  solely  by 
a  coarse  and  unintelligent  rendering  of  one  of  the 


fHMfcfcle  years.  99 

roses  in  St.  Cecily's  wreath,  but  it  makes  possible 
Mr.  Layard's  disconcerting  assumption  that  Rossetti 
was  perpetrating  a  joke  involving  something  like 
the  betrayal  of  a  literary  trust. 

Despite  his  sufferings  (and  in  part  because  of 
them)  these  struggles  with  the  block  resulted  in 
important  contributions  to  the  name  and  fame  of 
Rossetti.  "T.  .  .  .  [Tennyson]  loathes  my  de- 
signs," he  wrote  to  Allingham,  but  the  public  did  not 
loathe  them,  and  to  William  Morris  they  were  the 
star  that  guided  him  toward  his  own  interesting 
essays  in  the  art  of  wood-engraving.  Owing  to 
the  care  and  pride  of  authorship  that  made  Rossetti 
a  difficult  co-operator,  his  woodcut  drawings  were 
almost  all  of  them  done  first  on  paper,  so  that  his 
own  interpretation  of  his  own  idea  was  preserved 
from  oblivion,  as  was  not  the  case  with  much  of  the 
work  done  by  the  then  modern  method  of  drawing 
directly  on  the  block. 

From  illustration  Rossetti  turned  with  ardour  and 
facility  and  the  confidence  of  ignorance  to  wrestle 
with  problems  of  decorative  art.  In  1856  he  was 
commissioned  to  paint  a  reredos  in  three  compart- 
ments for  the  cathedral  at  Llandaff,  which  John  P. 
Seddon  was  restoring.  This  was  "a  big  thing," 
which  he  went  into  "  with  a  howl  of  delight"  after 
his  little  work,  and  did  not  finish  until  1864,  receiving 
^400  for  his  labour. 

During  the  same  year  he  met  William  Morris  and 
Edward  Burne-Jones,  the  latter  having  come  up  in 


ioo  Gbe  IRossettis. 

vacation  from  Oxford  to  London,  where  he  visited 
Rossetti  in  his  studio  at  Blackfriars.  The  ultimate 
result  of  the  visit,  which  was  to  change  Burne-Jones 
from  an  ecclesiastic  to  a  painter,  is  well  known.  He 
began  painting  under  Rossetti's  friendly  guidance, 
and  his  master  prescribed  for  him  the  very  course 
enjoined  upon  himself  so  long  ago  by  Madox  Brown. 
He  was  first  to  spend  his  time  in  learning  to  master 
his  materials,  and  in  watching  Rossetti's  own  meth- 
ods of  work.  He  was  next  to  attempt  literal  tran- 
scription ;  then  to  devote  his  study  to  the  methods 
and  masters  of  the  past,  and,  finally  to  work  out  his 
own  individuality.  "  In  all  things  a  better  friend  to 
others  than  to  himself,"  says  Mr.  Hueffer,  ((  Rossetti 
watched  over  Burne-Jones's  development  with  single- 
hearted  devotion.  He  allowed  him  the  run  of  his 
studio  and  the  use  of  his  models,  made  him  his  daily 
companion,  and  studied  with  him." 

During  this  time  Morris  used  to  come  up  from 
Oxford  almost  every  week  to  spend  Sunday  with 
his  friend,  and  the  three  would  go  to  the  play  on 
Saturday  night,  and  after  it  was  over,  if  Rossetti's 
"  imperious  impatience  of  bad  acting  "  allowed  them 
to  stay  it  out,  they  would  sit,  after  the  fashion  of 
Rossetti's  followers,  in  ardent  discussion  until  the 
small  hours  of  the  morning,  the  younger  men  daz- 
zled and  dominated  and  eager  to  obey  the  orders  of 
the  "master." 

By  the  end  of  the  year  Morris  and  Burne-Jones 
were  both  settled  in  London,  and  Rossetti's  descrip- 


Gbe  fflMfcMe  JJ?ear0.  101 

tion  of  them  to  Allingham  shows  an  admiration  as 
enthusiastic,  if  not  as  worshipful,  as  that  which  they 
frankly  bore  him. 

"Both,  I  find,"  he  wrote,  "are  wonders  after 
their  kind.  Jones  is  doing  designs  which  quite  put 
one  to  shame,  so  full  are  they  of  everything — Aurora 
Leighs  of  art.  He  will  take  the  lead  in  no  time. 
Morris,  besides  writing  those  capital  tales,  writes 
poems  which  are  really  better  than  the  tales.  .  .  . 
His  facility  at  poetising  puts  one  in  a  rage.  He  has 
been  writing  at  all  for  little  more  than  a  year,  I  be- 
lieve, and  has  already  poetry  enough  for  a  big  book. 
You  know  he  is  a  millionaire,  and  buys  pictures.  He 
bought  Hughes's  April  Love,  and  lately  several  wa- 
ter-colours of  mine,  and  a  landscape  by  Brown, —  in- 
deed, seems  as  if  he  would  never  stop,  as  I  have  three 
or  four  more  commissions  from  him.  To  one  of  my 
water-colours,  called  The  Blue  Closet,  he  has  written 
a.stunning  poem.  You  would  think  him  one  of  the 
finest  little  fellows  alive,  with  a  touch  of  the  inco- 
herent, but  a  real  man.  He  and  Jones  have  taken 
those  rooms  in  Red  Lion  Square  which  poor  Deverell 
and  I  used  to  have,  and  where  the  only  sign  of  life, 
when  I  found  them  the  other  day,  on  going  to  en- 
quire, all  dusty  and  unused,  was  an  address  written 
up  by  us  on  the  wall  of  a  bedroom,  so  pale  and 
watery  had  been  all  subsequent  inmates,  not  a  trace 
of  whom  remained.  Morris  is  rather  doing  the  mag- 
nificent there,  and  is  having  some  intensely  mediae- 
val furniture  made — tables  and  chairs  like  incubi  and 


102  Ebe  IRossettte. 


succubi.  He  and  I  have  painted  the  back  of  a  chair 
with  figures  and  inscriptions  in  gules  and  vert  and 
azure,  and  we  are  all  three  going  to  cover  a  cabinet 
with  pictures.  Morris  means  to  be  an  architect,  and 
to  that  end  has  set  about  becoming  a  painter,  at 
which  he  is  making  progress.  In  all  illumination 
and  work  of  that  kind  he  is  quite  unrivalled  by  any- 
thing modern  that  I  know  —  Ruskin  says  better  than 
anything  ancient." 

In  these  rooms  of  Red  Lion  Square,  with  their 
furniture  done  "  in  gules  and  vert  and  azure,"  we 
see  the  great  house  of  Morris  &  Co.  in  embryo,  its 
master  and  head  "  deeply  under  the  spell  of  Rosset- 
ti's  influence,"  and  at  his  best  when  "  imitating 
Gabriel  "  as  far  as  possible.  Nor  did  Gabriel  falter 
as  a  guide  of  lordly  impulses.  Never  had  any  fol- 
lower of  his  to  complain  of  tame  or  hesitating  en- 
couragement on  the  part  of  the  leader.  In  1857  he 
and  Morris  went  up  to  Oxford  during  the  long  vaca- 
tion and  visited  the  Debating  Hall  of  the  Union  So- 
ciety then  in  process  of  construction.  The  architect, 
Benjamin  Woodward,  was  fighting  for  the  new 
Gothic  style  of  architecture  against  the  old  semi- 
classical,  and  "  a  feeling  of  glorification  and  enthusi- 
asm was  in  the  air  "  with  which  Rossetti  promptly 
became  infected.  He  proposed  that  he  and  some 
of  his  friends  should  decorate  the  ten  window-bays 
of  the  room  and  the  ceiling,  doing  the  work  gratu- 
itously, merely  the  expenses  of  the  little  band  to  be 
assumed  by  the  Union.  The  Arthurian  Legend,  at 


The  Damsel  of  the  San  Grael. 


• 


md 


. 

as  possible.    Nor  ter 

de  of  lordly  impulses.    Never  had  any  fol- 
his  to  complain  of  tame  or  hesitati 

on  the  part  of  1 
vent  up  to 

. 


OMftMe  H>ear0.  103 

that  time  the  pet  literature  of  both  Morris  and  Ros- 
setti,  was  to  furnish  the  themes  for  the  decorations  ; 
the  work,  which  must  of  course  include  a  large 
number  of  figures  above  life-size,  was  to  be  finished 
in  six  weeks.  The  building  committee  accepted  this 
extraordinary  proposition,  and  Rossetti,  Burne-Jones, 
Morris,  Arthur  Hughes,  Valentine  Prinsep,  Spencer 
Stanhope,  and  Pollen,  entered  bravely  upon  their 
task.  "A  more  brilliant  company,"  Mr.  Stephens 
reflects,  "  it  would,  out  of  Paradise,  be  difficult  to 
select."  Brilliant  they  were  indeed,  but  they  knew 
no  better  than  to  paint  in  tempera  directly  upon  a 
new  brick  wall  with  only  a  coat  of  whitewash  be- 
tween them  and  destruction. 

"There  is  no  work  like  it  in  the  delightfulness  of 
the  doing,  and  none,  I  believe,  in  which  one  might 
hope  to  delight  others  more  according  to  his  pow- 
ers," Rossetti  wrote  to  Professor  Norton,  as  the 
pure,  bright  colours  of  the  designs  commenced  to 
glow  upon  the  walls  "like  the  margin  of  an  illumin- 
ated manuscript." 

Six  months  instead  of  six  weeks  were  given  to 
the  painting,  and  it  was  then  resigned  unfinished, 
to  fade  rapidly  out  of  sight  under  the  onslaughts 
of  the  British  climate.  To-day,  Mr.  Marillier  says, 
it  is  "  a  dingy  blur  of  colours  in  which  may  be  dis- 
tinguished the  occasional  vague  form  of  an  armoured 
limb  or  a  patch  of  flowery  background.  The  roof 
alone,  which  was  redecorated  in  1875,  remains  a 
success,  and  a  tribute  to  the  genius  of  William 


104  £be  IRossettte. 

Morris,  whose  design  for  it  —  almost  his  first  work 
of  the  kind  —  was  done  in  a  single  day  and  carried 
out  with  customary  energy  and  vehemence." 

Despite  the  breakdown  of  these  great  opera- 
tions, certain  results  of  importance  accrued  to  Ros- 
setti  from  this  stay  at  Oxford.  For  one  thing  he 
gained  the  material  for  some  fine  drawings  and 
water-colours,  and  for  another  he  gained  a  model 
whose  curious  type  of  beauty  influenced  for  better 
or  for  worse  a  large  proportion  of  his  subsequent 
painting.  This  model  was  a  Miss  Burden,  whom  he 
saw  at  the  theatre  one  night,  admired  extravagantly, 
and  knew  as  promptly  as  possible  in  order  to  beg  for 
sittings.  Soon  after,  she  became  the  wife  of  Morris. 
Her  pale  face  in  its  setting  of  dusky  and  richly  wav- 
ing hair  is  seen  in  The  Day-Dream,  in  Revery,  in 
Aurea  Catena,  in  La  Donna  delta  Fiamma,  in  Pan- 
dora, in  Proserpine,  in  The  Water  Willow,  and  in 
many  other  pictures  of  Rossetti's  later  period.  Her 
"deep  look,"  filled  with  the  melancholy  of  "un- 
happy Proserpine,"  suggests  "  strange  ways  of 
thought  "  indeed,  with  little  cheer,  whether  it 
meets  you  from  the  clouds  of  smoke  curling  out 
of  Pandora's  violated  box,  or  from  the  lovely 
"thronged  boughs  of  the  shadowy  sycamore"  in 
Rossetti's  own  garden.  Its  mystery  is  not  alto- 
gether alluring,  and  the  widespread  theory,  grow- 
ing out  of  its  great  unlikeness  to  the  expression  of 
any  other  face  known  to  the  picture-loving  world 
—  that  it  especially  represents  Rossetti's  art  and 


(UMfcMe  l!>ears.  105 

predilection — has  kept  many  people  from  recognising 
his  more  robust  and  more  admirable  qualities.  It 
was  a  curious  fate  that  gave  him  this  model  at  just 
the  point  in  his  career  when  his  tendency  toward 
mystery  and  symbolism  was  gaining  ascendency 
over  the  sturdier  tendencies  of  his  youthful  art. 

'  In  Aylwin  the  painter  D'Arcy  (Rossetti)  shows 
to  Winifred  four  pictures  of  women,  two  brunettes 
and  two  blondes,  and  asks  her  to  classify  them  ac- 
cording to  her  own  view.  Winifred  finds  the  differ- 
ence "one  of  soul"  selecting  as  the  nobler  types 
the  pictures  painted  not  from  hired  models,  but 
from  D'Arcy's  friends  and  asks  if  an  artist's  success 
depend  greatly  upon  the  model.  "  It  does  indeed," 
he  replies;  "such  success  as  I  have  won  since  my 
great  loss  is  very  largely  owing  to  those  two  ladies, 
one  so  grand  and  the  other  so  sweet,  whom  you  are 
admiring."  The  "  one  so  grand  "  was  Mrs.  Morris, 
the  "  one  so  sweet "  was  Mr.  Stillman's  young 
Greek  wife,  who  "  with  reassuring  eyes  most  fair,  a 
presage  and  a  promise,  stands"  among  the  "  Spring- 
flushed  apple-growth  "  of  Fiammetta. 

In  his  list  of  the  models  who  appear  in  his 
brother's  pictures,  Mr.  William  Rossetti  mentions 
<4  a  pure-blooded  gipsy  "  as  the  prototype  of  the  dark 
woman  to  the  right  of  the  spectator  in  the  barbaric- 
ally  beautiful  painting  called  The  Beloved.  This 
undoubtedly  is  the  Sinfi  Lovell  who  plays  so  promi- 
nent a  part  in  Aylwin,  but  how  many  of  the  incid- 
ents connecting  her  generous  Romany  life  with 


io6  Gbe  IRossettis. 

that  of  D'Arcy  are  founded  upon  fact  can  only  be 
told  us  by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  himself.  Her  humor- 
ous account  of  D'Arcy's  chivalrous  attitude  toward 
her,  given  in  the  preface  of  the  third  edition  of  The 
Coming  of  Love,  may  safely  be  read,  however,  as 
representing  the  spirit  if  not  the  act  of  Rossetti  in 
dealing  with  those  dependent  upon  him,  or  having  in 
his  own  estimation  a  claim  upon  his  consideration. 

The  model  who  possibly  did  most  to  counteract 
the  effect  upon  Rossetti's  painting  of  the  gloomy, 
Proserpine  type  of  beauty,  is  she  who  posed  for  the 
figure  of  the  woman  in  Found,  and  who  for  the  fol- 
lowing twenty  years  appeared  from  time  to  time  in 
important  pictures,  in  the  Lady  with  the  Fan,  in  Fazio's 
Mistress,  in  Bocca  Baciata,  in  the  original  Lilith. 
This  was  "Fanny  Cornforth,"  later  Mrs.  Hughes, 
later  Mrs.  Schott,  who  exercised,  to  quote  Mr.  Maril- 
lier's  words,  "  Almost  as  remarkable  an  influence 
over  Rossetti's  life  as  over  his  art."  Her  long  waving 
hair  has  been  variously  described  as  pale  gold,  har- 
vest yellow,  and  red  of  the  shade  "belonging  to  a 
certain  type  of  Englishwomen  in  Sussex  and  Surrey, 
and  seen  in  combination  with  brown  eyes."  Her 
figure,  so  far  from  realising  the  slender  stateliness  of 
Rossetti's  ideal,  was  plump  enough  to  suggest  to  his 
extravagantly  facetious  fancy  the  agreeable  nickname 
of ' '  Elephant. "  Her  features  were  notable  for  a  certain 
kind  of  beauty,  but  not  that  which  an  imaginative 
painter  instinctively  idealises.  In  most  cases,  if  not 
in  all,  Rossetti's  pictures  of  her  are  portraits  pure  and 


Mrs.  Stillman  (Miss  Marie  Spar  tali). 


.>-. 


107 

simple  ;  in  them  the  painter  ceases  to  puzzle  you  ;  he 
sees  as  you  see,  opulent  lines  and  firm  flesh,  their 
robust  beauty  glorified  by  the  ripest  and  most  glow- 
ing colour. 

The  strain  of  his  poetic  idea  has  slipped  from  him 
in  these  pictures  and  he  paints  as  did  Rubens  and 
Titian,  with  frank  delight  in  splendid  surfaces,  forms, 
and  textures.  He  is  never  so  much  a  poet  as  when 
he  is  painting  Elizabeth  Siddal  or  Mrs.  Morris,  but 
he  is  perhaps  never  so  much  a  painter  as  when  he  is 
painting  "  Fanny  Cornforth." 

To  return  to  his  association  with  Morris, —  he 
threw  himself  into  the  manifold  interests  of  this  arch- 
itect, poet,  decorator,  and  social  reformer,  with  all 
the  peculiar  versatility  that  enlivened  without  ever 
threatening  his  overmastering  vocation.  Notwith- 
standing many  and  striking  similarities  of  taste,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  recall  two  men  more  tempera- 
mentally unlike  than  Morris  and  Rossetti.  Morris,  as 
he  is  described  by  Mr.  Mackail,  was  interested  in 
things  much  more  than  in  people.  He  had  indeed 
"the  capacity  for  loyal  friendships  and  for  deep  affec- 
tions, but  even  of  these  one  might  almost  say  that 
they  did  not  penetrate  to  the  central  part  of  him." 
The  thing  done,  the  story,  or  the  building  or  the 
picture,  was  what  he  cared  about.  And  in  the  or- 
dinary concerns  of  life  he  was  "strangely  incurious 
of  individuals."  He  could  work  "with  anyone,  sym- 
pathetic to  him  or  not,  so  long  as  they  helped  along 
the  work  in  hand."  Although  the  sufferings  of 


io8 

classes  of  men  weighed  upon  his  spirit,  he  was  not 
the  friend  to  whom  one  would  go  for  sympathy  in 
distress,  being  often  moved,  indeed,  to  "a  strange 
sort  of  impatience  by  the  sight  of  personal  suffering." 
Rossetti  once  said  of  him  (in  "  one  of  those  flashes 
of  hard  insight  that  made  him  so  terrible  a  friend  "), 
"  Did  you  ever  notice  that  Top  never  gives  a  penny 
to  a  beggar  ?  " 

How  different  this  was  from  Rossetti,  the  lavish, 
the  magnificent,  the  expansive,  and  to  a  degree 
the  uncalculating,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  point 
out.  On  the  score  of  irritability  Morris  far  outdis- 
tanced Rossetti, —  the  occasional  outbreaks  recorded 
of  the  latter  reading  like  the  fretting  of  a  lamb  beside 
the  periods  of  storm  and  gesticulation  in  which  Morris 
indulged,  or  the  still  more  ferocious  periods  of  noble 
restraint,  such  as  the  one  in  which  he  chewed  a  tea- 
spoon entirely  out  of  shape  in  order  to  keep  himself 
within  bounds. 

When  Morris  moved  from  Red  Lion  Square  to 
what  has  long  been  known  as  "  the  Red  House"  at 
Upton  near  Bexley  Heath,  Woolwich,  he  enlisted  his 
friends  to  aid  in  its  decoration.  Rossetti  painted  on 
one  of  the  doors  two  panels  in  oil  representing  Dante 
meeting  Beatrice  in  Florence  and  in  the  garden  of 
Eden.  The  Dantis  Amor  was  also  painted  for  a  cab- 
inet in  the  Red  House.  The  difficulty  Morris  found 
in  getting  furniture  and  draperies  of  a  kind  to  make 
the  place  a  true  "  House  Beautiful  "  confirmed  in  him 
a  desire  to  undertake  the  reforms  with  which  his  name 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  1861, 


109 

has  been  connected  for  the  past  forty  years.  He 
panted  for  furniture  in  quaint  designs,  for  wall-paper 
that  should  decorate  the  surface  it  covered,  for  glass 
stained  in  accordance  with  the  true  principles  of 
vitraux,  for  carpets  and  hangings  in  satisfactory  dyes. 
Then  why  not  have  them  ?  The  house  was  hardly 
finished  when  the  plan  for  the  Morris  company  was 
set  on  foot.  "  We  are  organising,"  wrote  Rossetti, 
in  1 86 1,  "  (but  this  is  quite  under  the  rose  as  yet,)  a 
company  for  the  production  of  furniture  and  decora- 
tions of  all  kinds  for  the  sale  of  which  we  are  going 
to  open  an  actual  shop  !  The  men  concerned  are 
Madox  Brown,  Jones,  Topsy,  Webb  (the  architect  of 
T's  house),  P.  P.  Marshall,  Faulkner,  and  myself. 
Each  of  us  is  now  producing,  at  his  own  charges, 
one  or  two  (and  some  of  us  more)  things  toward  the 
stock.  We  are  not  intending  to  compete  with  -  -'s 
costly  rubbish  or  anything  of  that  sort,  but  to  give 
real  good  taste  at  the  price  as  far  as  possible  of  ordinary 
furniture.  We  expect  to  start  in  some  shape  about 
May  or  June,  but  not  to  go  into  any  expense  in 
premises  at  first."  In  April  of  the  following  year 
Faulkner  writes  of  meetings  resembling  those  of  the 
Jolly  Masons  in  character,  and  adds,  "  Our  firm  has 
arrived  at  the  dignity  of  exhibition  at  the  Great  Ex- 
hibition, where  we  have  already  sent  some  stained 
glass,  and  where  they  obtained  a  medal  for  '  imitation 
of  Gothic  patterns '  and  shall  shortly  send  some  fur- 
niture which  will  doubtless  cause  the  majority  of  the 
spectators  to  admire.  The  getting  ready  of  our 


no  Gbe  IRossettis, 

things  has  cost  more  tribulation  and  swearing  to 
Topsy  than  these  exhibitions  will  be  worth." 

Rossetti,  Mr.  Mackail  observes,  displayed  in  con- 
nection with  this  enterprise  "business  qualities  of  a 
high  order  and  the  eye  of  a  trained  financier  for  any- 
thing that  had  money  in  it."  And  in  the  prospectus 
of  the  new  firm  he  discovers  evil  traces  of  Rossetti's 
"  slashing  hand  "and  contempt  of  difficulties  and  in- 
difference to  scrupulous  accuracy  of  statement,  all 
of  which  have  been  basely  justified  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world  by  the  amazing  success  of  the  little  com- 
pany first  quartered  in  a  few  rooms  of  No.  8,  Red 
Lion  Square,  with  a  small  kiln  for  firing  glass  and 
tiles  in  the  basement.  Morris,  of  course,  was  the 
prime  mover  in  the  actual  work  of  the  firm.  He  ham- 
mered and  tinkered  and  dabbled  in  dyes  and  wove 
and  designed  and  painted.  Not  even  the  embroider- 
ies were  neglected  by  his  short,  thick,  adaptable  fin- 
gers. "Top  has  taken  to  worsted  work,"  Rossetti 
sarcastically  records.  But  Rossetti  himself  was  fairly 
zealous  in  work  at  first,  and  the  years  1861-62  show 
a  creditable  record  of  designs  for  windows  and  for 
furniture  decoration. 

One  of  the  earlier  ventures  of  the  firm  was  the 
"  King  Rene's  Honeymoon  Cabinet"  made  for  John 
P.  Seddon  in  illustration  of  the  theory  he  was  urg- 
ing elsewhere,  "  and  has  never  since  ceased  from 
urging,"  that  "in  the  unity  and  fellowship  of  the 
several  arts  lies  their  power."  Mr.  Seddon  himself 
contributed  to  the  decoration  some  jocular  designs 


Dr.  Johnson  and  the  Methodist  Ladies 
at  The  Mitre. 


• 


flDifcMe  JJears. 

representing  the  judicial  relations  of  an  architect 
with  a  greedy  client  on  one  side  and  with  a  grasp- 
ing builder  on  the  other.  The  panels  were  painted 
in  oil  by  Rossetti,  Madox  Brown,  and  Burne-Jones, 
the  larger  designs  representing  King  Rene  and  his 
bride  enjoying  their  honeymoon  in  the  practice  of 
the  arts  in  which  he  was  an  amateur.  " Music" 
fell  to  Rossetti's  lot,  and  his  version,  unlike  those 
of  his  fellow  decorators,  shows  the  king  more  atten- 
tive to  the  bride  than  to  the  art,  and  is  very  win- 
ning and  modern,  in  strong  contrast  to  the  clumsily 
mediaeval  figures  of  Madox  Brown's  design.  The 
smaller  panels  represented  the  seasons,  Rossetti 
painting  Spring. 

Besides  this  experimental  work,  and  his  regular 
painting,  which  up  to  1863  included  more  than 
seventy-five  oil  and  water-colours,  Rossetti  taught 
for  a  time  in  the  Working-Men's  College,  of  which 
Frederic  D.  Maurice  was  head,  and  in  which  Ruskin 
was  deeply  interested.  "It  is  to  be  remembered 
of  Rossetti  with  loving  honour,"  Ruskin  writes  in 
Prceterita,  "  that  he  was  the  only  one  of  our  modern 
painters  who  taught  disciples  for  love  of  them." 
His  method  was  characteristic  and  unlike  that  which 
he  used  with  Burne-Jones.  Remembering  his  own 
detestation  of  "  bottles  "  he  set  his  pupils  to  draw- 
ing straight  from  the  model  and  in  colour.  "None 
of  your  Free-Hand  Drawing-Books  used,"  he  wrote 
to  Bell  Scott  who  was  a  teacher  in  the  Government 
Schools  ;  "the  British  mind  is  brought  to  bear  on  the 


H2  £be  IRossettis. 

British  mug  at  once,  and  with  results  that  would  as- 
tonish you."  He  would  put  a  bird  or  a  boy  before 
his  class  and  say  :  "  Do  it !  "  without  any  preliminary 
explanations. 

While  he  was  thus  engaged  in  nursing  disparate 
and  dormant  sympathies  into  flame,  his  human  in- 
terests as  well  as  his  intellectual  preoccupations  rose 
highest.  The  portraits  of  these  years  tell  their 
story  of  inspiring  and  inspiriting  associations.  Ten- 
nyson, Browning,  Swinburne,  Ruskin,  all  belong  to 
this  division  of  time.  Also  all  but  the  last  of  his 
little  visits  to  the  Continent  were  made  before  the 
death  of  his  wife  in  1862.  No  traveller,  no  ad- 
venturer in  body  or  mind,  these  foreign  trips  made 
but  a  superficial  impression  on  him  and  apparently 
not  any  impression  at  all  upon  his  work.  Some  of 
his  critics  have  traced  pertinently  enough  in  his  early 
style  reminiscences  of  Memling,  whom  he  so  much 
admired  on  his  first  trip  abroad,  and  have  found 
suggestions  of  Titian  in  the  later  work.  But  the 
unstudious  way  in  which  he  flitted  through  the 
galleries,  the  readiness  with  which  he  formed  and 
discarded  prejudices,  the  incidental  lightness  of  his 
criticisms  show  that  he  did  not  in  any  particular 
sense  depend  upon  outside  influences,  however 
potent,  to  form  his  own  individuality.  That  he  did 
not,  accounts  in  part,  of  course,  for  his  weakness  as 
well  as  for  his  strength.  It  would  be  a  mistake, 
however,  to  judge  very  deeply  of  his  predilections 
from  the  expression  he  gives  to  them  in  his  letters. 


Algernon  Charles  Swinburne. 

From  water-colour  by  Rossetii. 


to  th-. 

,^bft^wff<iit<r 
but  a  supertlciaM«^rt98ftw'w&i: 

any  impression  at  all  upon  his  w 
;ave  -traced 'pertinently  enough 
liscences  of  Memlin. 
Iiis  first  t 
' 

* 
•  I 


fHMfcNe  J)ears.  113 

Always  possessed  with  a  boyish  horror  of  fine  writ- 
ing, much  addicted  to  the  slang  his  little  circle  of 
intimates  delighted  in,  and  scornful  of  criticism  ex- 
cepting from  him  who  "  can  prove  what  he  saith 
with  his  hand,"  he  said  once  regarding  his  own 
criticism  that  he  was  only  at  home  with  facts, 
and  that  he  could  not  think  of  much  to  say 
about  things,  so  that  such  an  expression  as  "  some 
mighty  things  by  that  real  stunner  Lionardo  "  may 
be  considered  to  cover  as  many  emotions  as  a  page 
or  two  of  Ruskin's  eloquent  appreciations. 

When  he  was  in  Paris  in  1849  with  Holman  Hunt 
he  ran  across  Browning  in  the  Louvre,  a  little  later 
he  discovered  Pauline  in  the  British  Museum,  in  its 
anonymous  form,  and,  convinced  of  its  authorship, 
wrote  to  Browning  about  it.  This  led  to  a  closer 
acquaintance,  and  Rossetti  saw  Browning  frequently 
when  the  latter  was  in  London  in  1852  and  again  in 
1855,  and  during  the  ten  days  Rossetti  spent  in 
Paris  in  the  autumn  of  1855  their  friendship  so 
ripened  that  he  was  ready  to  "  boast  of  some  in- 
timacy with  the  glorious  Robert."  Browning's  por- 
trait, begun  in  London,  was  finished  in  Paris,  and 
Rossetti  then  looked  forward  to  painting  both 
Browning  and  his  wife  in  oil,  a  plan  that,  unfortun- 
ately for  the  memory  of  Mrs.  Browning's  sensitive 
and  charming  face,  was  never  carried  out.  How 
much  more  the  temper  of  Browning's  mind  appealed 
to  Rossetti  than  the  profuse  sweetness  of  Ruskin's 
is  very  plainly  seen  in  Rossetti's  comments  on  the 


H4  Gbe  IRossettis. 

work  of  the  two  men.  Referring  to  a  passage  in 
Modern  Painters  in  which  Ruskin  quotes  from 
Browning's  poem,  The  Bishop  Orders  his  Tomb  at 
Saint  Praxed's  Church,  and  compares  Browning 
with  Longfellow,  he  writes  to  Allingham  :  "  Really, 
the  omissions  in  Browning's  passage  are  awful,  and 
the  union  with  Longfellow  worse.  How  I  loathe 
Wishi-Washi, —  of  course  without  reading  it.  I 
have  not  been  so  happy  in  loathing  anything  for  a 
long  while  —  except,  I  think,  Learns  of  Grass  by  that 
Orson  of  yours." 

This  unsentimental  side  of  Rossetti,  this  sturdi- 
ness  that  chimed  so  well  with  Browning's,  is  not  the 
quality  oftenest  seen  in  his  paintings,  yet  it  is  a 
quality  that  much  impressed  the  companions  of  his 
early  prime.  To  a  large  degree  he  lost  it  in  his  later 
struggles  with  melancholia,  but  he  was  never  en- 
tirely without  it,  and  it  found  a  curiously  complete 
expression  in  the  picture  painted  immediately  after 
his  marriage,  the  Dr.  Johnson  at  the  Mitre.  Bos- 
well's  Life  of  Johnson  shared,  with  the  Life  of  Keats 
and  Benvenuto  Cellini's  Autobiography,  the  most 
lively  enthusiasm  expressed  by  Rossetti  for  bio- 
graphical literature,  and  from  the  Life  of  Johnson  he 
chose  an  anecdote  of  particularly  Johnsonian  flavor 
to  develop  according  to  his  own  idea,  first  in  a  pen- 
and-ink  drawing,  and  then  in  colour.  The  scene 
is  laid  in  the  Mitre  Tavern  after  the  dinner  with 
the  two  young  women  of  Staffordshire.  Maxwell 
was  the  Doctor's  companion  on  this  occasion,  but 


flMbMe  J)ear$.  115 

Rossetti  substituted  Boswell's  more  familiar  counte- 
nance. The  treatment  is  a  triumph  of  realism,  such 
masterly  realism  as  Honore  Daumier's  in  his  admira- 
ble water-colours.  The  vitality  and  interest  of  the 
faces  are  not  confused  or  overborne  by  any  intricate 
problem  of  psychology,  and  the  painter's  technical 
ability  appears  thus  to  be  freed  to  challenge  any 
doubt  of  its  adequacy.  Yet  the  psychological  tem- 
per is  there  to  give  value  and  significance  to  the 
vigorously  prosaic  reality.  It  is  perhaps  ungracious 
praise  to  say  that  no  Frenchman  would  be  ashamed 
of  having  painted  Dr.  Johnson  at  the  Mitre,  but  it 
conveys  as  well  as  may  be  the  sense  of  the  beholder 
that  in  this  picture  Rossetti  stepped  with  a  Gargan- 
tuan stride  outside  his  special  faculty  and  sentiment, 
outside  his  national  temperament  outside  his  techni- 
cal limitations  even,  and  with  a  fine  gusto  took  his 
place  momentarily  among  the  realists. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
TRANSLATIONS  AND  ORIGINAL  POEMS. 

WHILE  tracing  the  course  of  Rossetti's  paint- 
ing during  the  dozen  or  more  years  of 
what  are  called  his  first  and  second  pe- 
riods, we  have  left  at  one  side  his  practice  in  poetry. 
It  was  one  of  his  pet  theories  that  English  poetry 
died  with  Keats  while  English  painting  was  in  the 
very  morning  of  its  youth.  This  conviction,  sup- 
ported by  the  fact  that  his  father  much  discouraged 
his  frequent  and  apparently  whimsical  diversions 
from  painting,  aided  him  to  an  early  decision  be- 
tween the  two  modes  of  expression  almost  equally 
natural  to  him.  By  the  time  he  was  twenty-four  he 
had  "abandoned  poetry"  by  his  own  assertion. 
After  that  he  did  not  resume  regular  composition 
until  1869,  seven  years  after  the  death  of  his  wife, 
although  the  impulse  that  had  driven  him  in  boy- 
hood to  the  translations  from  the  early  Italians,  and 
to  such  original  work  as  The  Blessed  Damo%el,  was 
never  entirely  quiet  within  him.  The  story  of  his 
literary  career  up  to  the  appearance  of  the  volume  of 

116 


translations  anb  Original  poems.       117 

1870  is  briefly  told,  and,  by  virtue  of  one  incident,  is 
perhaps  the  most  curious  in  the  history  of  modern 
poets. 

"I  wish  one  could  live  by  writing  poetry,"  he 
wrote  to  Madox  Brown  in  1871;  ''I  think  I  'd  see 

painting  d d  if  one  could."    Twenty-three  years 

before,  while  he  was  still  irresolute,  he  had  written 
to  Leigh  Hunt  to  find  if  perchance  one  could  live  by 
writing  poetry,  such  poetry  as  his  own,  of  which  he 
sent  specimens.  Leigh  Hunt's  response  was  gratify- 
ing enough  to  Rossetti  the  poet,  so  much  so  that  he 
"  could  not  quote  any  part  of  it  lest  it  should  seem 
like  conceit,"  but  to  Rossetti  the  practical  man  it  was 
disheartening.  The  translations  brought  forth  the 
criticism  that  he  was  altogether  "not  so  musical  as 
pictprial,"  but  the  original  poems  revealed  an  "un- 
questionable poet,  thoughtful,  imaginative,  and  with 
rare  powers  of  expression."  "  I  hailed  you  as  such 
without  any  misgiving,"  said  the  elder  writer,  "  and 
beside  your  Dantesque  heavens  (without  any  hell  to 
spoil  them),  admired  the  complete  and  genial  round 
of  your  sympathies  with  humanity."  Nevertheless 
there  was  no  encouragement  to  adopt  poetry  as  a 
profession.  "I  hardly  need  tell  you,"  Leigh  Hunt 
continued,  certainly  from  the  fulness  of  experience, 
— "  I  hardly  need  tell  you  that  poetry,  even  the  very 
best, — nay,  the  best,  in  this  respect,  is  apt  to  be  the 
worst — is  not  a  thing  for  a  man  to  live  upon  while 
he  is  in  the  flesh,  however  immortal  it  may  render 
him  in  spirit." 


us  Gbe  IRossettis. 

The  truth  of  this  Rossetti  could  not  deny,  and  in 
1853  he  laid  poetry  aside  as  a  luxury  not  to  be  in- 
dulged in.  He  had  then  been  writing  in  a  desultory 
way  for  some  eight  or  ten  years,  beginning  (as  at  the 
close  of  his  life  he  ended)  with  a  ballad,  Sir  Hugh 
the  Heron,  which  old  Gaetano  Polidori  valued  highly 
enough  to  have  printed  at  the  private  printing-press. 
This  ballad,  much  to  Rossetti's  chagrin,  found  its  way 
eventually  to  the  British  Museum  Library.  Its  author 
left  behind  him  a  memorandum  of  its  worthlessness, 
as  there  was  no  knowing,  he  said,  "  what  fool  might 
some  day  foist  the  absurd  trash  into  print "  as  one 
of  his  print-worthy  productions.  "  It  is  curious  and 
surprising  to  myself,"  he  added,  "  as  evincing  absol- 
utely no  promise  at  all — less  than  should  exist  even 
at  twelve." 

The  life  led  by  Rossetti  between  the  years  of 
twelve  and  twenty  had  been  precisely  the  sort  to 
foster  poetic  instincts,  however,  and  train  the  poetic 
faculty.  In  1844  and  1845  when  he  was  studying 
German  he  made  a  translation  of  Burger's  Lenore  and 
of  part  of  the  Nibelungenlied.  And  from  Dante, — 
the  young,  rapt  lover  Dante  of  the  Vita  Nuova, — 
always  present  in  his  father's  study,  he  had  turned  as 
we  have  seen  to  the  Italian  poets  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  revelling  in  their  complicated  forms  and  in- 
tricate rhymes.  Beatrice  was  no  ghost  to  him,  nor 
were  the  dead  loves  of  these  Italians  buried  to  him 
beneath  the  gracefully  elaborate  metres  of  their  po- 
etic style,  so  new  and  so  fascinating  to  them  in  its 


(Translations  anb  <§>ri$inal  poems.       119 

modernity  at  the  time  of  their  writing.  It  was  his 
birthright  to  realise  them  not  merely  learnedly  but 
personally,  and  to  interpret  them  with  the  authority 
of  fellow-feeling,  showing  the  sincerity,  the  serious, 
deep  emotions  lying  at  the  heart  of  the  multitud- 
inous artifices  and  mannerisms.  Not  at  all  in  the 
spirit  brought  by  him  to  his  illustrations  did  he  work 
at  these  translations.  Here  the  responsibility  of 
rendering  another's  idea  with  absolute  faithfulness 
rested  duly  upon  him.  "The  life-blood  of  rhythmi- 
cal translation,"  he  writes  in  his  preface  to  The  Early 
Italian  Poets,  "is  this  commandment  that  a  good 
poem  shall  not  be  turned  into  a  bad  one.  The  only 
true  motive  for  putting  poetry  into  a  fresh  language 
must  be  to  endow  a  fresh  nation,  as  far  as  possible, 
with  one  more  possession  of  beauty."  "The  task 
of  the  translator  (and  with  all  humility  be  it 
spoken),"  he  continues,  "is  one  of  some  self-denial. 
Often  would  he  avail  himself  of  any  special  grace  of 
his  own  idiom  and  epoch,  if  only  his  will  belonged 
to  him ;  often  would  some  cadence  serve  him  but 
for  his  author's  structure — some  structure  but  for  his 
author's  cadence  ;  often  the  beautiful  turn  of  a  stanza 
must  be  weakened  to  adopt  some  rhyme  which  will 
tally,  and  he  sees  the  poet  revelling  in  abundance  of 
language  where  himself  is  scantily  supplied.  Now 
he  would  slight  the  matter  for  the  music,  and  now 
the  music  for  the  matter ;  but  no,  he  must  deal  to 
each  alike.  Sometimes  too  a  flaw  in  the  work  galls 
him,  and  he  would  fain  remove  it,  doing  for  the  poet 


120  Gbe  IRossettte. 


that  which  age  denied  him,  but  no,  it  is  not  in  the 
bond." 

These  translations  he  kept  by  him  for  almost  as 
many  years  as  he  had  lived  when  he  commenced  to 
make  them,  altering  them  fastidiously,  handing  them 
about  in  manuscript  among  the  friends  whose  criti- 
cisms he  valued,  and  weighing  well  the  suggestions 
thus  invited.  "Of  course  you  know  our  common 
race  too  well,"  he  wrote  to  Allingham,  "to  think  I 
should  always  benefit  by  a  warning  though  one 
should  rise  from  the  grave  —  but  I  am  sure  I  should 
get  something  out  of  you."  In  this  way  the  poems 
were  passed  in  review  by  Coventry  Patmore,  Count 
Saffi,  Ruskin,  and  others,  who  bade  him  count  upon 
their  literary  success  and  "  something  in  money  also." 
Ruskin,  at  that  time  still  much  to  the  fore  as  a  ready 
staff  to  lean  upon  in  time  of  need,  guaranteed  to  his 
own  publishers  the  sum  of  a  hundred  pounds  if  they 
would  undertake  the  risk  of  publication,  and  in  1861, 
at  a  time  of  great  anxiety  for  Rossetti  on  the  score 
of  his  wife's  health,  the  little  volume  was  brought 
out.  In  the  course  of  eight  years  it  made  him  the 
richer  by  nine  pounds,  the  profits  having  that  much 
more  than  covered  Ruskin's  guarantee. 

Many  critics,  however,  found  with  Coventry  Pat- 
more  that  it  was  "one  of  the  very  few  really  pre- 
cious books  in  the  English  or  any  other  language." 
Its  title  in  the  first  edition  was  The  Early  Italian 
Poets,  later  changed  to  Dante  and  His  Circle  in  order 
to  give  due  prominence  to  the  greatest  name  of  all. 


translations  anb  Original  poems.       121 

Besides  the  translation  of  the  Vita  Nuova  it  contained 
separate  can^oniere,  sonnets,  and  ballata  by  Dante 
himself  and  by  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries. 
Rossetti's  idea,  in  his  own  words,  was  "to  give  a 
full  view  of  that  epoch  of  poetry,"  in  its  sentiment, 
taste  and  manner,  and  he  "should  not  have  cared  to 
do  the  work  at  all  unless  completely  from  a  literary 
point  of  view."  In  this  he  succeeded.  To  avoid 
the  distress  of  a  text  "hampered  with  numerals 
for  reference  "  and  "  sticking  fast  "  at  the  bottom  of 
the  page  in  "a  slough  of  verbal  analysis,"  he  was 
obliged,  he  said,  to  put  in  "  a  good  deal  of  my  own 
prose,"  and  very  excellent  prose  it  was,  bringing  be- 
fore the  reader  the  dim  and  unfamiliar  figures  of 
Cavalcanti,  Orlandi,  Angiolieri,  and  their  group,  in 
vivid  portraiture  as  the  wit,  the  bore,  or  the  scamp 
of  the  society  and  time  in  which  they  lived. 

Through  the  translations  themselves  we  have  a 
curious  glimpse  of  the  influences  that  above  all 
others  dominated  Rossetti's  mind,  whether  he  was 
painting  pictures  or  writing  his  own  can^oniere. 
We  see  him  at  heart  an  Italian  and  in  his  most 
potent  interest  an  Italian  of  these  very  Middle  Ages. 
It  is,  perhaps,  perilously  easy  to  find  in  the  accid- 
ents of  his  name  and  lineage  an  exaggerated  sug- 
gestion of  his  likeness  to  the  Alighieri,  but  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  find  in  what  his  critics  called  "an 
appropriate  instinct  of  style  "  the  spontaneous  re- 
sponse of  one  in  an  alien  age  and  country  to  the 
voice  of  his  own  time  and  place; — the  voice  of  a 


122  Gbe  IRossettte. 

time  wayward,  passionate,  poetic,  filled  with  youth- 
ful eagerness,  charm,  gaiety,  and  riot  of  thought, 
awakening  to  literature  and  art  and  the  finer  aspects 
of  love,  fresh  in  morning  activities,  puzzled  and 
delirious  with  the  delight  of  new-born  powers ;  the 
voice  of  a  place  most  courtly,  rich,  and  beautiful, 
one  in  which  to  be  joyous  and  generous  and  tender 
and  ardent,  despite  mysticism,  treachery,  and  suspi- 
cion abounding.  The  theme  of  the  early  poets  is 
frequently  love  of  the  most  pitiable  and  wailing 
type,  the  lovers  "  sighing  and  sorrowing,  and  languid 
at  the  heart,"  but  the  examples  chosen  by  Rossetti 
show  also  an  aspiration  toward  the  loftier  elements 
of  Dante's  love  for  Beatrice,  the  qualities  that  trans- 
formed mediaeval  love-making  from  a  profession  to 
an  ideal.  More  than  one  of  the  poets  can  say  with 
Jacopo  da  Lentino : 

Marvellously  elate, 

Love  makes  my  spirit  warm 

With  noble  sympathies. 

Nor  is  that  side  of  human  nature  which  is  ex- 
ternal and  unsentimental  neglected.  In  the  exuber- 
ant sonnets  of  Folgore  da  San  Geminiano  we  have 
hints  of  a  spacious  Elizabethan  life,  not  less  brilliant 
and  genial  because  the  "  blithe  and  lordly  Fellow- 
ship "  to  which  the  sonnets  are  dedicated  destroyed 
itself  in  hare-brained  pleasuring.  Here  is  the  one 
for  February  : 

In  February  I  give  you  gallant  sport 
Of  harts  and  hinds  and  great  wild  boars  ;  and  all 


{Translations  anfc  Original  poems.       123 

Your  company  good  foresters  and  tall, 
With  buskins  strong,  with  jerkins  close  and  short  ; 
And  in  your  leashes  hounds  of  brave  report  ; 

And  from  your  purses  plenteous  money  fall, 

In  very  spleen  of  misers'  starveling  gall, 
Who  at  your  generous  customs  snarl  and  snort. 

At  dusk  wend  homeward,  ye  and  all  your  folk, 
All  laden  from  the  wilds,  to  your  carouse 

With  merriment  and  with  songs  accompanied  : 
And  so  draw  wine  and  let  the  kitchen  smoke  ; 
And  so  be  until  the  first  watch  glorious  ; 
Then  sound  sleep  to  you  till  the  day  be  wide. 

In  the  New  Life  even  more  than  in  the  poems  we 
have  the  evidence  of  Rossetti's  sympathy  with  his 
subject  in  the  pure,  delightful,  easy  diction.  His 
translation  as  a  translation  has  been  given  a  very 
high  place  if  not  the  highest.  As  an  example  of 
gracious,  lovely  English,  firm,  significant,  and  pliable, 
it  may  fairly  be  deemed  flawless.  If  we  set  a  page 
of  it  by  the  side  of  a  page  from  Sir  Theodore  Martin's 
version,  which  appeared  almost  at  the  same  time,  we 
get  the  contrast  between  worthy  interpretation,  con- 
scientious and  formal,  and  such  expressive  render- 
ing as  seems  in  itself  original  expression. 

Take  the  passage  describing  the  grief  of  Beatrice 
over  the  death  of  her  father.  Rossetti's  version  runs 
as  follows : 

"Not  many  days  after  this  (it  being  the  will  of 
the  most  High  God,  who  also  from  Himself  put  not 
away  death),  the  father  of  wonderful  Beatrice,  going 
out  of  this  life,  passed  certainly  into  glory.  Thereby 


124  Gbe  IRossettte. 

it  happened,  as  of  very  sooth  it  might  not  be  other- 
wise, that  this  lady  was  made  full  of  the  bitterness 
of  grief:  seeing  that  such  a  parting  is  very  grievous 
unto  those  friends  who  are  left,  and  that  no  other 
friendship  is  like  to  that  between  a  good  parent  and 
a  good  child  ;  and  furthermore  considering  that  this 
lady  was  good  in  the  supreme  degree,  and  her  father 
(as  by  many  it  hath  been  truly  averred)  of  exceeding 
goodness.  And  because  it  is  the  usage  of  that  city 
that  men  meet  with  men  in  such  a  grief,  and  women 
with  women,  certain  ladies  of  her  companionship 
gathered  themselves  unto  Beatrice,  where  she  kept 
alone  in  her  weeping  :  and  as  they  passed  in  and  out 
I  could  hear  them  speak  concerning  her,  how  she 
wept.  At  length  two  of  them  went  by  me,  who 
said :  '  Certainly  she  grieveth  in  such  sort  that  one 
might  die  for  pity,  beholding  her.'  Then,  feeling 
the  tears  upon  my  face,  I  put  up  my  hands  to  hide 
them  :  and  had  it  not  been  that  I  hoped  to  hear  more 
concerning  her  (seeing  that  where  I  sat,  her  friends 
passed  continually  in  and  out),  I  should  assuredly 
have  gone  thence  to  be  alone,  when  I  felt  the  tears 
come." 

Compare  with  this  Sir  Theodore  Martin's  careful 
periods : 

''Not  many  days  after  this  sonnet  was  written 
(so  it  was  ordained  by  that  glorious  Lord  of  Heaven, 
who  Himself  refused  not  to  undergo  death)  he  who 
had  been  the  progenitor  of  all  the  wondrous  perfec- 
tions which  were  displayed  in  that  most  excelling 


Study  for  "Dante's  Dream"  Scarf  holder. 

Mrs.  W.  J.  Stillman  (Mils  Spartali). 


anfc  Original  poems.       125 

Beatrice,  departing  from  this  life  passed  of  a  surety 
into  eternal  glory.  Wherefore,  forasmuch  as  such  a 
separation  is  most  sad  to  those  who  are  left  behind, 
and  to  whom  he  who  has  passed  away  was  dear : 
and  as,  moreover,  there  is  no  relation  so  dear  as  that 
of  a  good  father  to  a  good  child,  and  of  a  good  child 
to  a  good  father ;  and  as  this  lady  was  pre-eminently 
good,  and  her  father  (as  by  many  is  thought,  and  as 
in  truth  he  was)  was  likewise  eminently  good,  it 
needs  not  to  declare  that  her  grief  was  most  bitter 
and  abounding.  And  seeing  that  according  to  the 
usage  of  the  aforesaid  city,  women  at  these  woful 
seasons  unite  their  grief  with  women,  and  men  with 
men,  many  ladies  repaired  to  the  place  where  Beatrice 
bewailed  her  loss  with  many  tears ;  certain  of  which 
ladies  I  saw  returning  thence,  and  heard  them  speak 
of  that  most  gentle  being,  and  how  profound  was 
her  affliction.  And  amongst  others  these  words 
reached  me — '  She  weeps  so,  that  whoever  sees  her 
must  surely  die  of  pity.'  Then  these  ladies  passed 
on,  and  I  remained  in  such  distress  that  my  cheeks 
were  bathed  in  tears,  to  conceal  which  I  had  again 
and  again  to  raise  my  hands  to  my  eyes.  And  had 
it  not  been  that  I  hoped  to  hear  more  about  her  (for 
where  I  stood  the  greater  proportion  of  these  ladies 
as  they  quitted  her,  were  obliged  to  pass),  I  should 
have  sought  concealment  incontinently  the  fit  of 
weeping  seized  me." 

We  realise  that  it  is  Rossetti  and  not  the  English 
writer  who  has  found  in  Dante's  narrative  the  natural 


126  Gbe  IRossettte. 


statement  of  a  very  natural  state  of  mind,  and  who 
in  the  words  of  one  of  his  reviewers  has  "so  man- 
aged matters  that  he  brings  his  English  readers  face 
to  face  with  the  great  Florentine  of  six  hundred  years 
ago,  and  silences  that  ominous  question  so  constantly 
recurring  to  the  readers  of  translations  from  ancient 
and  mediaeval  literature,  "  How  did  this  read  to  the 
author's  contemporaries  of  his  own  race  ?  " 

Rossetti's  original  poems  had  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  the  translations,  some  of  the  best  belonging  to 
the  time  preceding  Pre-Raphaelitism.  In  1861  he 
had  an  idea  of  collecting  all  that  he  had  written  in  a 
companion  volume  to  The  Early  Italian  Poets,  and 
bringing  the  two  volumes  out  at  the  same  time. 
This  project  had  to  be  relinquished,  but  he  still 
looked  forward  to  publishing  the  original  poems  in 
the  near  future.  The  dramatic  impulse  that  pre- 
vented him  was  one  of  the  amazing  manifestations 
of  a  mind  rooted  in  emotion,  only  to  be  equalled  in 
strangeness  by  the  impulse  that  years  later  resulted 
in  the  publication  of  the  volume  of  1870. 

In  the  anguish  of  mind  following  his  wife's  death 
he  considered  that  the  poems  had  been  written 
upon,  many  of  them,  when  she  was  suffering,  and 
were  thus  in  a  sense  records  of  neglect  of  her.  For 
this  reason  he  took  the  manuscript  book  in  which 
they  were  copied  and  placed  it  in  her  coffin  to  be 
buried  with  her,  thus  putting  away  a  long-deferred 
hope  of  recognition  as  a  poet. 

Seven  and  a  half  years  after,  with  his  health 


{Translations  anfc  Original  poems.       127 

breaking,  eyesight  threatened,  and  nerves  yielding 
to  the  strain  of  almost  constant  insomnia,  he  began 
again  to  think  of  poetry  as  a  resource  and  stimu- 
lus in  his  partially  disabled  condition.  His  friends 
urged  his  writing  again,  and  more  than  one  has 
taken  to  himself  the  flattering  unction  of  having 
been  the  first  to  revive  in  his  mind  the  old  inter- 
est and  faculty.  In  the  spring  of  1868  three  of  the 
sonnets  written  for  pictures  appeared  in  a  pamphlet 
review  of  pictures  of  that  year,  prepared  by  Mr. 
Swinburne  and  Mr.  William  Rossetti  in  collabora- 
tion. The  next  year  several  sonnets  were  printed 
in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  and  preparations  were 
made  for  printing  a  volume  of  poems  for  Rossetti's 
own  convenience  and  not  for  publication, — to  serve 
merely  as  a  working  basis  for  a  larger  volume  when 
the  material  should  be  ready,  and  because,  as  he 
said,  he  found  blundered  transcripts  of  some  of  his 
old  things  flying  about,  which  would  at  some  time 
have  got  into  print  perhaps, —  "  a  thing  afflictive  to 
one's  bogie." 

Then  began  the  importunities  of  those  who  held 
Rossetti's  fame  dearer  than  his  dignity.  He  was 
besought  to  recover  the  buried  poems  for  the  rescue 
of  some  which  he  possessed  only  in  fragmentary 
form  and  others  of  which  he  had  kept  no  memo- 
randum at  all.  He  naturally  was  disinclined  to  such 
a  step;  but  Ultimately  he  yielded.  It  is  not  the  only 
recorded  act  of  his  life  that  is  difficult  to  understand, 
but  it  is  the  only  act  recorded  in  which  vanity  seems 


128  Gbe  iRossettis. 

to  play  a  prominent  part ;  and  to  dismiss  it  as  an 
isolated  and  uncharacteristic  manifestation  of  a  self- 
magnifying  spirit  from  which  on  all  other  occasions 
he  is  seen  to  be  singularly  free,  is  perhaps  wiser,  and 
is  certainly  simpler  than  to  attempt  to  account  for  it 
in  any  more  favourable  way. 

There  is,  however,  an  extraordinary  interest  in 
knowing  the  character  and  quality  of  poems  worthy 
in  the  eyes  of  their  author  of  such  a  sacrifice  of  deli- 
cate feeling.  What,  then,  was  the  volume  of  1870? 
First  of  all,  it  was  a  volume  of  strikingly  original  and 
personal  work,  although,  looking  at  it  in  the  light  of 
the  translations,  it  shows  convincingly  the  source 
from  which  it  springs.  "  The  Poetry  of  the  Italian 
Middle  Age,"  said  one  of  its  most  .discerning  critics, 
"  is  undoubtedly  that  which  above  others  has  pene- 
trated into  the  constitution  of  this  writer  and  be- 
come a  vital  part  of  himself.  There  are  two  ways 
in  which  this  tells  upon  his  original  writing  :  one  by 
furnishing  him  with  subjects,  the  other  by  colouring 
and  entering  into  his  treatment  of  subjects  arising 
elsewhere."  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  the  his- 
tory of  English  poetry  another  example  of  so  con- 
siderable a  body  of  verse  so  circumscribed  in  its  area 
of  sentiment.  The  treasure  of  Rossetti's  intellect 
was  rich  but  not  various,  deep  but  not  broad.  He 
had  no  lesson  to  teach  ;  he  had  no  philosophy  to 
explain  ;  he  had  but  a  few  general  reflections  upon 
the  life  of  the  many  to  put  into  words  ;  he  had  com- 
paratively little  to  say  about  external  nature  :  what 


{Translations  an^  Original  poems.       129 

he  had  at  heart  to  communicate  —  the  true  message 
of  all  his  poetry  —  was  his  unalterable  and  poignant 
belief  that 

To  have  loved  and  been  beloved  again 
Is  loftiest  reach  of  Hope's  bright  wing. 

Nor  was  he  a  generaliser  on  this  absorbing  subject. 
It  was  his  own  love  and  his  peculiar  delight  in  it 
that  was  always  present  to  his  mind. 

It  had  colour  and  form  :  it  was,  in  a  word,  a  pict- 
ure of  the  soul's  state.  Pictorial  and  passionate  are  the 
adjectives  that  equally  fit  The  Blessed  Damo^el,  Sister 
Helen,  Troy  Town  and  Stratton  Water,  A  Last  Con- 
fession, and  all  the  sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life,  des- 
pite the  diverse  settings  of  these  poems.  The  ' '  ever- 
present  apprehension  of  the  spiritual  world  and  of 
the  struggle  of  the  soul  with  earthly  conditions," 
constitutes  the  romantic  spirit  with  which  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  says  Rossetti's  work  is  filled,  and  this 
romantic  spirit  in  love,  never  with  the  grotesque,  as 
sometimes  happened  with  Coleridge  and  with  Blake, 
but  always  with  beauty,  most  often  expresses  itself 
in  terms  of  egoism.  This  is  most  plainly  seen  in  the 
sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life,  fifty  of  which  appeared 
in  the  1870  edition.  In  these  sonnets  every  phase 
of  feeling  is  "a  port  at  which  the  writer's  self  has 
touched."  No  mood  is  too  evanescent,  too  strained, 
or  too  sacred,  to  be  embodied  in  symbols  the  mate- 
rialism of  which  has  given  rise  to  severe  criticism. 
For  many  a  long  day  the  English  mind  has  been  in- 


130  Gbe  IRossettte. 

clined  to  forego  the  aesthetic  satisfaction  of  endowing 
abstract  thoughts  with  human  attributes,  but  Ros- 
setti  stopped  at  no  degree  of  anthropomorphism. 
Frequently  the  result  is  merely  a  more  than  usually 
vivid  diction,  as  in  the  lines  : 

Lo  !  Love,  the  child  once  ours  ;  and  Song,  whose  hair 

Blew  like  a  flame  and  blossomed  like  a  wreath  ; 
And  Art,  whose  eyes  were  worlds  by  God  found  fair, 

or  else  admirably  simple  and  touching,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  "little  outcast  hour,"  which  "might  have 
been  but  could  not  be  "  meeting  in  Heaven  the  two 
souls  to  whom  it  belonged,  and  leaping  to  them 
with  the  words,  "  I  am  your  child:  O  parents,  ye 
have  come  ! " 

In  other  instances,  however,  the  feeling  is  itself 
overpowered  and  distorted  by  the  weight  of  the  in- 
tense materialisation.  In  the  effort  toward  speech 
the  unspeakable  becomes  something  that  in  the  first 
conception  it  is  not,  something  far  more  gross,  more 
earthly,  and  less  true.  Where  the  poet  probably  in- 
tends to  intimate  divinely  exalted  influences  alive  in 
the  forms  of  things,  the  forms  themselves  are  so 
definitely  realised  as  to  clog  the  reader's  imagination 
instead  of  helping  it.  If  we  cared  to  get  only  the 
finest  essence  of  this  poetry,  only  what  would  reveal 
its  author  on  his  more  elevated  and  spiritual  side,  it 
would  be  easy  to  make  a  selection  including  such 
poems  as  the  Ave,  The  Blessed  Damo^el,  Brother 
Hilary,  The  Portrait,  The  One  Hope,  Old  and  New 
Art,  and  perhaps  half  a  dozen  more  from  the  1870 


^Translations  anb  ©risinal  poems*       131 

volume  that  should  show  him  dedicate  to  chastened 
sentiment  and  what  may  be  called  religious  expres- 
sion. But  it  would  not,  of  course,  any  more  than 
a  selection  from  the  opposite  side  of  his  poetry,  be 
the  true  Rossetti  in  all  the  puzzling  complexity  of 
his  "  chainless  thought  and  fettered  will." 

The  poetic  form  which  best  brought  out  Rossetti's 
excellence  was  the  ballad.  "  Ballads,"  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang  declares,  "are  a  voice  from  secret  places,  from 
silent  peoples,  and  old  times  long  dead  ;  and  as  such 
they  stir  us  in  a  strangely  intimate  fashion  to  which 
artistic  verse  can  never  attain."  Rossetti  here  was 
in  his  element.  A  theme  of  legendary  significance, 
an  interweaving  of  the  supernatural,  a  strong  primi- 
tive emotion,  an  ancient  flexible  form, — these  ele- 
ments he  fuses  with  magical  felicity. 

The  gruesome  ballad  of  Sister  Helen,  although  far 
less  beautiful  and  winning  in  its  art  than  The  Blessed 
Damo^el,  is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  perfect  of  his 
achievements  in  this  mode  of  expression.  Its  basis 
is  the  well-known  superstition  of  the  waxen  image 
make  in  the  likeness  of  one  on  whom  vengeance  is 
to  be  taken,  and  then  burned  down,  the  victim  dying 
in  slow  torment  pari  passu  with  the  melting  of  the 
image.  Each  stanza  begins  with  two  lines  of  quest- 
ioning or  comment  from  the  little  brother  on  the 
balcony,  followed  by  a  single  line  of  fierce  reply 
from  the  sister  within  at  her  incantations,  and  ending 
with  a  burden  or  chorus,  the  subtle  variations  of 
which  inform  the  scene  with  the  emotion  of  the 


132  tTbe  IRoesettis. 

onlooker.  In  every  detail,  in  the  swiftness  of  the 
drama,  in  the  rapid,  red-hot  dialogue,  in  the  direct 
appeal  to  the  reader's  wonder  and  awe,  in  the  recur- 
ring phrases,  it  answers  the  requirements  of  genuine 
balladry.  And  again,  in  a  way,  Rossetti  triumphs 
outside  of  his  natural  range,  for  cruelty  was  a  quality 
entirely  foreign  to  his  nature,  and  one  that  he  was 
not  prone  to  depict  in  his  art,  yet  more  relentless 
and  vindictive  passion,  barbaric  in  its  bitterness,  can 
hardly  be  imagined  than  is  concentrated  in  the  an- 
swers of  the  sorceress.  He  knew  perfectly  by  in- 
stinct what  a  ballad  should  be  to  compete  with  the 
tribe  of  Sir  Patrick  Spens  and  Chevy  Chace,  and 
sent  his  inspiration  like  an  arrow  to  the  centre  of  his 
target.  If  we  compare  Sister  Helen  with  such  at- 
tempts to  realise  the  antique  spirit  of  straightforward, 
unfeigned  passion  as  Bell  Scott's  Glenkindie,  or 
Robert  Buchanan's  The  Ballad  of  Judas  Iscariot,  we 
see  at  once  the  difference  between  the  natural  primi- 
tive and  the  detached  student  of  early  forms. 

Of  the  remaining  poems  two,  at  least,  claim 
special  mention  as  representative  of  Rossetti's  range 
and  equipment.  The  most  notable  is  the  Dante  at 
Verona,  full  and  rich  with  the  Dante  sympathy  of  its 
author,  and  with  incidents  and  suggestions  drawn 
from  his  intimate  knowledge  of  Dante's  history. 
Curiously,  this  poem  has  less  the  movement  of  im- 
passioned thought  than  almost  any  other  in  the 
book.  The  compensation  lies  in  the  reflective  tone 
rising  to  a  height  of  dignity  and  calm  seldom  shown 


Study  for  Head  of  Dante. 

Drawn  from  Mr.  IV.  J.  Stillman. 


!iine 


Uiorc4ik^  AitHtm>w<*U>»ttoe  centre  o: 
we  compare  Sister  Helen  with  sucl; 
tempts  to  r  lie  antique  spirit  of  straightforw 

:cd   passion  as  Bell   Scott's    ( 
hanan's  The  Bal 
the  differ^ 
stache< 
. 
; 


the 

tone 


<* 
***'-  ••' 


{Translations  anfc  <§>ri$inal  poems.       133 

by  Rossetti  in  his  poetry,  but  conspicuous  in  his 
personal  letters  on  subjects  involving  deep  feeling. 
The  son  of  an  exiled  father,  he  came  prepared  to 
the  contemplation  of  such  misery  as  the  flower  of 
Italian  cities  forced  upon  the  greatest  of  Italians,  and 
Dante's  thoughts  and  sufferings  are  real  to  him  as  to 
a  Florentine,  although  he  never  had  set  foot  upon 
the  streets  of  Florence.  Yet  in  the  following  stanzas 
we  get  the  effect  of  the  long  perspective,  the  retro- 
spective view  from  which  the  fire  of  present  emotion 
is  absent ;  and  we  miss  the  thrill  one  might  expect. 

Follow  his  feet's  appointed  way  ; 

But  little  light  we  find  that  clears 

The  darkness  of  the  exiled  years. 
Follow  his  spirit's  journey  : — nay, 

What  fires  are  blent,  what  winds  are  blown 

On  paths  his  feet  may  tread  alone  ? 

Yet  of  the  twofold  life  he  led 
In  chainless  thought  and  fettered  will 
Some  glimpses  reach  us, — somewhat  still 

Of  the  steep  stairs  and  bitter  bread, — 
Of  the  soul's  quest  whose  stern  avow 
For  years  had  made  him  haggard  now. 

Alas  !  the  Sacred  Song  whereto 

Both  heaven  and  earth  had  set  their  hand 

Not  only  at  Fame's  gate  did  stand 
Knocking  to  claim  the  passage  through, 

But  toiled  to  ope  that  heavier  door 

Which  Florence  shut  for  evermore. 

Shall  not  his  birth's  baptismal  Town 
One  last  high  presage  yet  fulfil, 


134  Gbe  IRossettis. 

And  at  that  font  in  Florence  still 
His  forehead  take  the  laurel-crown  ? 
O  God  !  or  shall  dead  souls  deny 
The  undying  soul  its  prophecy  ? 

Aye,  't  is  their  hour.     Not  yet  forgot 
The  bitter  words  he  spoke  that  day 
When  for  some  great  charge  faraway 

Her  rulers  his  acceptance  sought. 
"  And  if  I  go,  who  stays  ?" — so  rose 
His  scorn  : — "  And  if  I  stay,  who  goes  ?" 

"  Lo  !  thou  art  gone  now,  and  we  stay" 
(The  curled  lips  mutter)  :  "and  no  star 
Is  from  thy  mortal  paths  so  far 

As  streets  where  childhood  knew  the  way. 
To  Heaven  and  Hell  thy  feet  may  win, 
But  thine  own  house  they  come  not  in." 

Therefore,  the  loftier  rose  the  song 

To  touch  the  secret  things  of  God, 

The  deeper  pierced  the  hate  that  trod 
On  base  men's  track  who  wrought  the  wrong  ; 

Till  the  soul's  effluence  came  to  be 

Its  own  exceeding  agony. 

Arriving  only  to  depart, 

From  court  to  court,  from  land  to  land. 

Like  flame  within  the  naked  hand 
His  body  bore  his  burning  heart 

That  still  on  Florence  strove  to  bring 

God's  fire  for  a  burnt-offering. 

This  is  the  poetry  of  deep  contemplation  but  not 
in  any  sense  of  drama. 

The  other  poem,  Jenny,  bears  much  the  same 
relation  to  Dante  at  Verona  that  the  picture  Found 
bears  to  the  pictures  in  which  Dante  figures.  The 


translations  anb  Original  poems.       135 

step  is  taken  from  the  ancient  to  the  modern,  and 
from  the  intellectual  and  emotional  to  the  moral. 
The  poem  and  the  picture  form,  each  in  its  especial 
art,  the  singular  exception  to  Rossetti's  unmoralising 
tendency.  The  subject  is  the  wretchedly  familiar 
one  of  innocence  departed,  a  subject  popular  with 
the  little  group  of  English  poets  just  then  before  the 
public,  and  the  treatment  is  grave.  How  much  its 
effect  is  the  matter  of  individual  temperament  on  the 
part  of  the  reader  is  shown  by  the  conflicting  criti- 
cisms from  writers  of  equal  authority.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  bear  in  mind  Rossetti's  own  attitude  toward 
the  poem,  as  he  has  expressed  it  in  a  letter  to  his 
aunt  whose  disapprobation  he  obviously  feared  and 
deprecated.  "  You  may  be  sure  I  did  not  fail  to  think 
of  you  when  I  inscribed  copies  (of  the  Poems)  to 
friends  and  relatives,"  he  writes,  "but,  to  speak 
frankly,  I  was  deterred  from  sending  it  to  you  by 
the  fact  of  the  book  including  one  poem  (Jenny), 
of  which  I  felt  uncertain  whether  you  would  be 
pleased  with  it.  I  am  not  ashamed  of  having  written 
it  (indeed,  I  assure  you  that  I  would  never  have 
written  it  if  I  thought  it  unfit  to  be  read  with  good 
results)  ;  but  I  feared  it  might  startle  you  somewhat, 
and  so  put  off  sending  you  the  book.  I  now  do  so 
by  this  post,  and  hope  that  some  if  not  all  of  the 
pieces  may  be  quite  to  your  taste.  Indeed,  I  hope 
that  even  Jenny  may  be  so,  for  my  mother  likes  it 
on  the  whole  the  best  in  the  volume  after  some 
consideration." 


136  Ebe  IRossettis. 

None  of  the  poems  that  went  into  the  1870 
volume  took  their  place  without  minute  revision. 
Wherever  Rossetti's  conscience  may  have  played 
him  false  it  was  never  in  the  line  of  laxity  regarding 
the  perfection  of  his  workmanship.  His  letters  prior 
to  the  publication  of  the  poems  indicate  endless  con- 
sultations, corrections,  and  insertions.  "In  Pen- 
umbra \  have  altered  in  last  stanza  '  rasp  the  sands ' 
to  'chafe.'  The  other  seemed  violent  and  inexact," 
he  writes.  And  again  :  "Your  last  line  to  the  Satan 
sonnet  I  adopted  with  a  slight  change,  but  am  rather 
uncertain  whether  1  may  not  change  back  again." 
His  horror  of  plagiarism  was  carried  to  extreme  limits. 
On  one  occasion  he  considered  omitting  the  three 
important  sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life  headed  The 
Choice  because  the  idea  of  a  single  line  ("They  die 
not,  never  having  lived  ")  was  identical  with  the  idea 
expressed  at  the  close  of  Browning's  In  a  Gondola. 
"The  point  is  just  what  is  wanted  and  not  possible 

to  alter,"  he  writes.    The  care  he  had  for  the  form 

• 

of  his  work  was  extended  to  its  appearance  before 
the  public.  He  was  concerned  that  the  volume 
which  had  been  so  long  in  the  making  should  receive 
due  welcome  at  its  debut  and  he  had  no  mind  to  be 
a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  The  sensitiveness 
that  kept  him  from  attempting  to  force  the  doors  of 
public  galleries  with  his  pictures  made  him  curiously 
anxious  for  the  fate  of  his  poems.  Undoubtedly  the 
majority  of  poets  have  cared  as  much,  but  in  most 
cases  pride  or  vanity  steps  in  to  save  appearances, 


{Translations  anfc  Original  {poems,       137 

and  proud  and  self-reliant  as  Rossetti  was  in  many 
respects,  both  qualities  failed  him  somewhat  in  the 
question  of  launching  his  volume.  Bell  Scott  in  his 
amazing  autobiography  declares  that  to  the  last 
moment  "he  would  work  the  oracle,  and  get  all  his 
friends  to  prepare  laudatory  critical  articles  to  fill  all 
the  leading  journals."  That  he  did  nothing  of  the 
kind  his  brother  has  shown  conclusively,  his  friends, 
among  them  Swinburne  and  Morris  and  Sidney 
Colvin  and  Joseph  Knight,  having  written  from  their 
own  convictions  and  of  their  own  free  will.  Never- 
theless, Rossetti  was  noticeably  solicitous  and  did 
plan  for  a  favourable  reception  to  the  legitimate 
extent  of  sending  his  book  first  to  two  or  three 
papers  where  he  could  count  upon  friendly  reviews, 
and  waiting  until  such  reviews  appeared  before  send- 
ing it  to  other  papers.  This  plan  seems  not  to  have 
miscarried,  for  the  Poems  were  received  on  the  very 
threshold  of  their  publicity  with  a  fine  burst  of  ap- 
plause, opened  by  Mr.  Swinburne's  loud  and  joyous 
hymn  of  praise  in  the  Fortnightly  Review. 

Immediate  financial  success  ensued,  the  first  edi- 
tion of  a  thousand  selling  within  three  weeks,  and 
Rossetti  realising  four  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  in 
three  months'  time.  With  this  result  he  was  natu- 
rally elate,  but  his  first  melancholy  collision  with  the 
inimical  critics  he  had  dreaded  followed  hard  upon. 
In  October,  1871,  an  article  appeared  in  the  Con- 
temporary Review,  signed  Thomas  Maitland,  and 
entitled  :  The  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry :  Mr.  D.  G. 


138  Gbe  1Ro00ettte. 

Rossetti,  a  title  indicating  perhaps  as  much  the  pro- 
clivities as  the  intention  of  the  writer.  Rossetti  was 
arraigned  on  grounds  of  reserve  and  delicacy  in  a 
manner  the  unreserve  and  indelicacy  of  which  would 
be  difficult  to  surpass,  and  which  was  certainly  not 
justified  by  the  fact  that  parts  of  Rossetti 's  poetry 
emphatically  invited  condemnation.  For  a  writer 
who  proposes  seriously  to  illustrate  the  human  soul, 
Mr.  James  says  with  reference  to  Balzac,  there  is 
absolutely  no  forbidden  ground.  There  was,  unfort- 
unately, no  forbidden  ground  for  Rossetti,  but  con- 
sciously or  flippantly  immoral  in  his  writings,  even 
the  freest  of  them,  he  was  not,  and  he  deeply  re- 
sented the  imputations  which  involved  his  character 
quite  as  much  as  his  literary  ability.  The  review 
contained  misstatements  and  mutilated  quotations 
which  offered  a  chance  for  more  or  less  dignified  re- 
futation and  explanation,  a  chance  Rossetti  grasped 
to  the  regret  of  his  personal  friends,  although  his 
response  to  Mr.  Maitland  (who  turned  out  to  be  Mr. 
Robert  Buchanan)  was  temperate  and  well  expressed. 
In  1872  Mr.  Buchanan  reissued  his  article  as  a  pam- 
phlet volume  of  about  a  hundred  pages,  much  en- 
larged, with  further  denunciatory  matter  and  with  no 
retractions.  Nine  years  later,  when  Rossetti  was 
under  the  shadow  of  death,  he  did  retract,  dedicating 
his  romance,  entitled  God  and  the  Man,  to  Rossetti, 
— An  Old  Enemy.  After  Rossetti 's  death  the  fol- 
lowing year  he  withdrew  even  from  the  conviction 
which  had  formed  the  basis  of  his  criticism.  "  Mr. 


translations  an!)  ©riginal  poems.       139 

Rossetti,  1  freely  admit  now,  was  never  a  Fleshly 
Poet  at  all,"  he  wrote  in  The  Academy. 

This  incident  in  Rossetti's  career  would  be  un- 
worthy of  any  detailed  mention  were  it  not  for  the 
physical  effect  upon  its  victim  attributed  to  it  by 
those  nearest  him  and  most  entitled  to  judge  of  such 
effect.  At  the  time  the  article  appeared  Rossetti  was 
at  Kelmscott,  and  by  his  own  admission  "far  from 
exempt  from  signs  of  failing  health."  Insomnia  had 
begun  its  devastating  work  some  years  before,  and 
the  use  of  chloral  had  recently  been  adopted.  The 
end  was  perhaps  in  sight  independently  of  any  fur- 
ther evils,  but  the  strain  upon  the  nerves  by  the  un- 
expected and  violent  criticism  apparently  induced 
greater  sufferings  from  sleeplessness  and  correspond- 
ingly increased  dosing  with  chloral,  so  that  by  the 
time  Mr.  Buchanan's  pamphlet  appeared  Rossetti 
was  in  a  condition  to  regard  it  as  the  first  step  in  "a 
widespread  conspiracy  for  crushing  his  fair  fame  as 
an  artist  and  a  man,  and  for  hounding  him  out  of 
honest  society."  In  the  collection  of  his  family  let- 
ters those  immediately  following  the  one  in  which 
he  mentions  the  matter  of  The  Contemporary  Review 
tell  sadly  enough  the  story  of  permanently  broken 
health,  depressed  spirits,  and  "  an  utter  sleeplessness 
in  spite  of  heavy  narcotics."  The  relation  of  cause 
to  effect  is  best  stated  in  his  brother's  words :  "It 
is  a  simple  fact,"  he  says,  "that,  from  the  time  when 
the  pamphlet  had  begun  to  work  into  the  inner  tis- 
sue of  his  feelings  Dante  Rossetti  was  a  changed 


IRossettte. 

man,  and  so  continued  to  the  close  of  his  life.  Diffi- 
cult though  it  may  be  to  believe  this  of  a  person  so 
self-reliant  in  essentials  as  Rossetti, — one  who  had  all 
his  life  been  doing  so  many  things  just  as  he  chose, 
and  because  he  so  chose,  and  whether  other  people 
liked  them  or  not, — it  is  nevertheless  the  truth,  as  I 
know  but  too  well." 1 

1  Mr.  Buchanan's  dedication  is  quoted  in  Mr.  Hall  Caine's  Recollections  of 
Rossetti.  It  runs  as  follows  : 

t 
To  An  Old  Enemy. 

I  would  have  snatch'd  a  bay-leaf  from  thy  brow, 

Wronging  the  chaplet  on  an  honoured  head  ; 
In  peace  and  charity  I  bring  thee  now 
A  lily-flower  instead. 

Pure  as  thy  purpose,  blameless  as  thy  song, 
Sweet  as  thy  spirit,  may  this  offering  be  ; 
Forget  the  bitter  blame  that  did  thee  wrong, 
And  take  the  gift  from  me. 

To  a  later  edition,  published  after  Rossetti's  death,  were  added  these  lines  : 
To  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 

Calmly,  the  royal  robe  of  death  around  thee, 

Thou  sleepest  and  weeping  brethren  round  thee  stand- 
Gently  they  placed,  ere  yet  God's  angel  crown'd  thee, 
My  lily  in  thy  hand  ! 

I  never  knew  thee  living,  O  my  Brother ! 

But  on  thy  breast  my  lily  of  love  now  lies  ; 
And  by  that  token,  we  shall  know  each  other, 
When  God's  voice  saith  "  Arise  !  " 

By  the  stanzas  To  An  Old  Enemy,  Rossetti,  according  to  Mr.  Caine,  was 
"  manifestly  touched."  He  was  at  all  events  sufficiently  forgiving  to  discuss  with 
sympathy,  upon  his  death-bed,  Mr.  Buchanan's  then  new  volume  of  poems. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
LIFE  AT  CHEYNE  WALK  AND  KELMSCOTT. 

IN  speaking  of  the  publication  of  Rossetti's  poetry 
we  have  anticipated  the  order  of  events  in  his 
life.  To  return  to  the  date  of  his  wife's  death  : 
he  almost  immediately  removed  from  the  Chambers 
in  Chatham  Place  to  16  Cheyne  Walk,  Chelsea,  the 
old  Tudor  House  of  many  associations.  The  Thames 
Embankment  did  not  then  exist,  and  in  front  of  the 
house  were  all  the  ''boating  bustle  and  longshore 
litter  of  the  old  days."  Behind  it  was  a  garden  of 
something  less  than  an  acre  in  extent,  dotted  over 
with  lime-trees,  and  enclosed  by  a  high  wall ;  also, 
after  Rossetti's  advent,  populated  by  as  large  a  va- 
riety of  beasts  as  can  well  be  imagined  outside  of  a 
"  zoo."  Within  were  rooms,  "  old-fashioned,  home- 
like, and  comfortable,"  with  many  cupboards  and 
odd  nooks,  and  of  curious  architectural  construction. 
The  room  adopted  for  a  studio  was  large  (in  the 
neighbourhood  of  thirty  by  twenty  feet),  and  a  series 
of  columns  and  arches  on  one  side  suggested  the 
presence  in  former  times  of  a  wide  staircase.  It  was 
lighted  by  a  mullioned  window  which  Rossetti  had 

141 


142  £be  IRossettis. 

enlarged  until  it  reached  to  the  ceiling,  and  so  filled 
with  easels,  furniture,  bric-a-brac,  and  pictures  that 
it  took  an  appreciable  time  for  a  visitor  to  thread  his 
way  from  the  door  to  the  sofa  on  which  Rossetti  was 
in  the  habit  of  lolling,  according  to  Mr.  Hall  Caine's 
account  of  him,  "  with  his  head  laid  low  and  his  feet 
thrown  up  in  a  favourite  attitude  on  the  back."  In 
this  studio,  hung  with  his  own  paintings  (which  lay 
also  on  the  floor  and  against  the  easels  in  all  stages 
of  completion),  Rossetti  received  his  friends  with  the 
spontaneous  hearty  greeting  of  which  Mr.  Hall  Caine 
and  Mr.  Gosse  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  have  spoken, 
and  which  never  even  in  sickness  or  depression  was 
denied  those  to  whom  he  was  really  attached.  Here 
he  sat  late  into  the  night  or  all  night  long,  as  in 
his  Pre-Raphaelite  years,  in  the  veritable  conversa- 
%ioni  of  which  he  was  the  leader  in  spirit  if  not  in 
loquacity.  In  talk  he  seems  not  to  have  dominated 
as  much  as  might  have  been  supposed  from  the  pre- 
emptory,  positive  cast  of  his  opinions  and  his  incisive 
expression.  At  the  time  Mr.  Caine  knew  him  he 
"  required  to  be  constantly  interrogated,"  but  caught 
the  drift  of  a  suggestion  at  once  and  led  it  on  from 
point  to  point,  "  almost  removing  the  necessity  for 
more  than  occasional  words."  A  certain  amount  of 
wit  he  had,  and  more,  perhaps,  of  humour,  but  in  his 
conversation,  as  in  his  letters,  the  lighter  charm  was 
given  apparently  by  a  sportive  fancy  and  banter, 
sometimes  sarcastic  and  always  stimulating,  the 
familiar  and  social  side  of  that  great  imagination 


Xife  at  Cbesne  THIlalfc  ant)  IRelmscott.    143 

which  was  his  bane  as  surely  as  it  was  his  glory. 
His  mind  was  teeming  with  suggestions  of  a  practical 
sort  and  with  schemes  beyond  his  own  compass, 
which  were  always  at  the  disposal  of  those  who 
wanted  them.  He  was  as  ready  to  plan  a  book-cover 
or  a  picture  frame  for  a  rival  as  for  himself,  and  the 
exquisite  cover  of  his  Poems,  and  the  fitness  and  odd- 
ity of  his  many  frames  show  the  value  of  suggestions 
from  such  a  source. 

Despite  the  genuine  and  deep  grief  attending  the 
loss  of  his  wife,  he  was  far  from  succumbing  at  this 
time  to  the  melancholia  that  lies  always  in  wait  for 
temperaments  such  as  his.  Mr.  Gosse,  who  did  not 
know  him  until  1870,  declares  that  any  sketch  of  him 
would  be  incomplete  that  did  not  describe  his  loud 
and  infectious  laughter ;  and  his  brother  "  apologises 
to  his  loved  memory "  for  even  alluding  to  the 
"trumpery  misconception"  of  him  in  the  current 
notion  that  he  was  "  a  vague  and  gloomy  phantasist, 
combined  of  mysticism  and  self-opinion,  who  was 
always  sunk  in  despondency  or  fizzing  with  affecta- 
tion or  airing  some  intangible  ideal."  Nothing  testi- 
fies more  conclusively  to  the  excellent  fibre  of  his 
manliness  than  the  decision  and  energy  with  which 
he  threw  himself  into  a  variety  of  interests  and  wel- 
comed society  of  a  tonic  kind  during  even  the  first 
months  of  bereavement.  Indeed,  so  far  from  dis- 
liking society,  he  seemed  to  Mr.  Gosse  to  crave  it  as 
a  necessity,  although  he  chose  to  select  its  constitu- 
ents and  to  narrow  its  range. 


H4  £be  IRoesettis. 

When  he  took  Tudor  House  he  was  still  on  the 
hither  side  of  prosperity,  and  his  rent  (a  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  only),  was  lightened  by  his  taking  as 
subtenants  Swinburne,  whose  enlivening  acquaint- 
ance he  had  made  at  Oxford,  George  Meredith, 
whose  unlikeness  to  Rossetti  was  of  a  sort  to  dis- 
courage great  familiarity  between  the  two,  and  Wil- 
liam Rossetti,  who  came  only  on  three  fixed  days  of 
the  week,  and  was,  he  says,  on  the  footing  of  a 
guest  after  affairs  had  got  into  their  regular  course. 

Later,  when  Rossetti's  pictures  began  to  be  in 
steady  demand  and  to  bring  high  prices,  he  occupied 
the  house  alone,  although  its  rent  was  presently 
doubled.  He  entertained  sometimes  quite  regally, 
and  always  with  frank  hospitality.  The  amount  of 
pains  he  took  to  perfect  the  details  of  his  more  formal 
dinners  may  be  measured  by  his  disapprobation  of 
one  Christmas  feast  for  which  he  had  not  been  able 
to  superintend  preparations,  and  at  which  the  guests 
were  arranged  with  "all  the  ladies  in  comfortable 
seats  on  the  side  of  the  table  near  the  fire,  all  the 
gentlemen  facing  them,"  and  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  table  "as  though  about  to  deliver  a  funeral  ora- 
tion." The  meats,  on  this  occasion,  moreover,  were 
carved  in  the  room,  "at  least  two  minutes  elapsing 
before  serving  each  guest,"  and  the  butler,  "like  a 
fool,"  asked  each  which  he  preferred,  beef  or  fowl ! 
We  hear  also,  however,  of  the  easier  practice  of 
inviting  "  a  few  blokes  and  coves"  for  the  evening, 
"  with  nothing  but  oysters  and  of  course  the  seed- 


OLife  at  Cbepne  TKBalfe  anb  IRelmscott.    145 

iest  of  clothes."  Mr.  Gilchrist  has  reported  the 
simple  method  of  his  housekeeping:  ''when  his 
housekeeper  wearied  him  with  a  dish,  he  abruptly 
changed  the  diet.  '  Oh,  let  me  have  woodcock 
to-morrow!'  Whereupon  his  housekeeper  with 
Chinese  precision  served  woodcock  in  season  and 
out  of  season." 

Not  only  was  he  thus  a  liberal  host,  but  he  had 
the  not  too  usual  grace  sometimes  to  receive  as 
guests  for  months  at  a  time  —  apparently  as  long  as 
it  suited  their  convenience  —  friends  who  were  out 
of  health  or  "out  of  luck,"  without  exploiting  the 
service. 

Among  the  companions  he  liked,  but  did  not 
grapple  to  his  soul,  was  Whistler,  to  whose  competi- 
tive spirit  Tudor  House  owed  much  of  its  interests 
as  a  storehouse  of  antiquities,  he  and  Rossetti  estab- 
lishing a  friendly  rivalry  in  the  collection  of  blue 
china  and  Japanese  treasures.  There  are  tales  of 
Rossetti  dashing  away  from  his  visitors  to  secure  a 
bargain  which,  were  it  left  till  morning,  might  fall 
into  Whistler's  clutches,  and  the  market  strengthened 
rapidly  under  the  effect  of  such  zeal  and  persistence. 
Old  oak  was  another  passion  before,  as  his  brother 
says,  the  collecting  mania  became  extinct  in  Ross- 
etti, and  he  possessed  also  large  numbers  of  curi- 
osities in  bro.ize,  and  many  pieces  of  jewelry  such 
as  the  necklace  encircling  the  strong  young  throat 
of  his  Joan  of  Arc,  and  the  black  pearl  set  in  silver 
in  the  picture  Monna  Vanna,  to  say  nothing  of  the 


146  £be  IRossettis. 

incense  burners,  the  brass  ewer,  the  loving-cup, 
the  Peruvian  featherwork  ornaments,  the  ebony 
and  ivory  mirrors,  familiar  to  those  who  know  the 
pictures  of  his  later  life.  It  was  he  who  gave  to 
the  celebrated  hawthorn  jars  their  name,  and  he 
anticipated  also  the  modern  taste  for  Botticelli.  His 
Madonna  by  that  master  was  bought  for  the  trifling 
sum  of  twenty  pounds  and  sold  toward  the  end  of 
his  life  for  three  hundred  and  fifteen  pounds. 

His  collection  of  animals  was  significant  of  a 
predilection  dating  back  to  the  days  when  Christina 
and  he  as  children  visited  the  Zoological  Gardens. 
In  the  great  garden  of  his  new  home  this  predilec- 
tion had  full  play  and  a  truly  marvellous  procession 
of  pets  passed  through  those  heavy  gates.  At  one 
time  or  another,  according  to  his  brother's  incomplete 
list,  he  owned  dogs,  rabbits,  dormice,  hedgehogs, 
two  successive  wombats,  a  Canadian  marmot  or 
woodchuck,  an  ordinary  marmot,  armadillos,  kan- 
garoos, wallabies,  a  deer,  white  mice,  a  raccoon,  squir- 
rels, a  mole,  peacocks,  wood-owls,  Virginian  owls, 
Chinese  horned  owls,  a  jackdaw,  Australian  king- 
fishers, parrakeets,  a  talking  grey  parrot,  a  raven, 
chameleons,  green  lizards,  and  Japanese  salaman- 
ders, besides  a  zebu  who  incurred  his  master's  dis- 
pleasure by  ungratefully  treeing  him.  The  first 
wombat  was  the  favourite  of  these  "  beasts,"  occu- 
pying a  place  of  honour  at  Rossetti's  dinners,  on  top 
of  the  e"pergne  in  the  centre  of  the  table,  where  it 
would  usually  remain  politely  dormant.  On  one 


life  at  Cbe^ne  Malfc  ant>  IRelmscott.    147 

occasion,  however,  we  hear  of  its  descending  at  a 
propitious  moment  to  devour  the  entire  contents  of 
a  box  of  valuable  cigars,  a  story  that  matches  well 
the  account  of  the  eupeptic  raccoon  who  devoured 
shillings'  worth  of  prussic  acid  with  impunity. 
Other  stories  tell  us  of  the  mole  who  was  found 
dead  "after  being  all  right  over  night  and  eating 
worms  like  fun  " ;  of  the  armadillo  who  burrowed 
his  way  out  of  the  premises  and  turned  up  at  a 
neighbouring  hearthstone,  to  dismay  the  cook  with 
suggestions  of  the  evil  one ;  and  of  the  dormice  who 
ate  up  their  own  tails  and  perished.  The  wombat, 
however,  was  the  darling  of  the  menagerie.  "The 
Wombat  is  'A  Joy,  a  Triumph,  a  Delight,  a  Mad- 
ness ! '  '  wrote  its  master  soon  after  acquiring  it. 
This  sluggish  marsupial,  according  to  Madox  Brown 
was  the  prototype  of  the  now  historic  dormouse  in 
Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland,  the  same  who 
had  to  have  hot  tea  poured  on  his  nose  to  keep  him 
awake  at  dinner,  but  declared  that  he  had  n't  been 
asleep  but  "had  heard  every  word  you  fellows 
were  saying."  Many  a  word  worth  hearing  must 
have  travelled  along  the  auditory  canal  of  Rossetti's 
wombat,  as  it  dreamed  in  its  own  particular  and 
actual  Wonderland. 

Rossetti's  interest  in  his  peculiar  playmates  was 
quite  independent  of  zoological  knowledge,  of  which 
he  possessed  little  or  none.  If  we  may  once  more 
consider  Watts-Dunton's  D'Arcy  as  his  mouthpiece 
the  following  passage  shows  the  particular  turn  of 


148  £be  IRossettis. 

his  affection  for  them  :  "I  have  a  love  of  animals 
which,  I  suppose,  I  may  call  a  passion,"  says  D'Arcy. 
"The  kind  of  amusement  they  can  afford  me  is  like 
none  other.  It  is  the  self-consciousness  of  men  and 
women  that  makes  them,  in  a  general  way,  im- 
mensely unamusing.  I  turn  from  them  to  the  un- 
conscious brutes,  and  often  get  a  world  of  enjoyment. 
To  watch  a  kitten  or  a  puppy  play,  or  the  funny 
antics  of  a  parrot  or  a  cockatoo,  or  the  wise  move- 
ments of  a  wombat,  will  keep  me  for  hours  from 
being  bored." 

"'And  children,'"  I  said,  "'do  you  like  child- 
ren?'" 

"  '  Yes,  so  long  as  they  remain  like  young  animals 
—  until  they  become  self-conscious,  I  mean,  and  that 
is  very  soon.  Then  their  charm  goes.' ' 

Rossetti's  letters  contain  many  an  allusion  to  his 
"beasts,"  and  from  Morris's  house  at  Kelmscott  he 
records  an  instance  of  one  of  the  ways  in  which  an 
obliging  puppy  (named  Dizzy)  kept  him  from  being 
bored.  "  At  present,"  he  says,  "  I  am  going  about 
with  a  black  patch  over  my  nose.  Last  night  Jenny 
fille  and  I  agreed  to  shriek  at  the  same  moment 
(one  '  Creepy '  and  the  other  '  Crawly  ')  in  Dizzy's 
two  ears,  while  May  beat  a  tattoo  on  the  top  of  his 
head.  The  instant  result  was  that  he  turned  round 
howling,  and  bit  me  (fortunately  not  Jenny)  across 
the  nose,  at  which  I  am  not  surprised." 

At  one  time  an  attractive  young  elephant  was 
under  consideration  as  a  possible  purchase,  and  to 


Rosa  Triplex. 

National  Gallery,  London. 


IRose 


'And  ci 

Wlike  young  animals 

A , . 

y  become  seli-consc!  n,  and 

n,    Then  their  charn 

Rossetti's  iett  tain  n,  allusic 

and  from  Morris's  house  at  K«: 
instan( 

;%  At  preseir 


Xife  at  Cbepne  Malfc  anb  Ikelmscott.    149 

the  dissuasions  of  his  friends  Rossetti  replied  by 
explaining  how  useful  such  an  animal  might  be 
made  to  him  in  his  profession.  "I  mean  to  teach 
him  to  clean  the  windows,"  he  said;  "then,  when 
someone  passes  by  the  house  he  will  seethe  elephant 
cleaning  the  windows  and  will  say,  'Who  lives  in 
that  house  ? '  and  people  will  tell  him,  '  Oh,  that's  a 
painter  called  Rossetti,'  and  he  will  say,  M  think  I 
should  like  to  buy  one  of  that  man's  pictures. '  So 
he  will  ring  to  come  in,  and  I  shall  sell  him  a  picture." 

There  is  no  record  that  an  elephant  was  ever 
among  Rossetti's  pets,  but  his  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  appearance  of  that  picturesque  mammal  is 
well  proven  by  a  series  of  humorous  sketches  en- 
closed in  letters  to  one  of  his  correspondents,  in 
which  the  elephant  is  engaged  in  various  human 
occupations,  such  as  playing  cards,  digging  in  the 
ground,  or  unlocking  secret  closets.  These  sketches 
are  irresistibly  amusing  and  illustrate  perfectly  Ros- 
setti's whimsical,  confidential  attitude  toward  the 
animal  world. 

The  garden  which  formed  the  theatre  of  many 
dramas  in  the  lives  of  his  pets  was  purposely  kept  a 
tangled  wilderness  of  luxuriant  growth.  This  was 
his  own  taste,  as  the  letters  show,  but  he  was  en- 
couraged by  his  friend  Watts-Dunton  to  emphasise 
its  "  raggedness  "  as  much  as  possible,  the  latter 
having  a  passion  for  "  weeds,"  and  Rossetti,  "  with 
a  good-humoured  but  uninterested  smile,"  allowing 
him  to  indulge  it.  Jessamine,  roses,  and  marigolds 


150  £be  IRoseettis. 

mingled  with  thistles.  There  were  Solomon's  seal, 
daisies,  blue  irises,  and  rhubarb ;  fig-trees  grew  at 
their  own  sweet  will,  and  a  mulberry-tree  and  a 
sycamore  are  mentioned  as  particularly  beautiful 
among  the  trees.  As  Rossetti  became  more  disin- 
clined to  going  out  into  the  bustle  of  the  streets  he 
was  in  the  habit  of  tramping  about  the  untamed 
place  at  the  rate  of  five  miles  an  hour  for  his  daily 
exercise. 

In  the  early  sixties  we  find  him  making  some 
attempts  at  being  a  man  of  the  world.  He  was  a 
member  of  three  clubs, — the  Garrick,  the  Arun- 
del,  and  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts.  Some  of  his 
friends  remember  whist  as  having  been  among  his 
occasional  amusements,  though  he  was  a  poor 
player  and  ''rather  addicted  to  abstruse  specula- 
tions on  the  reasons  which  had  induced  him  to  play 
the  wrong  card. "  "No  amount  of  respect  or  attach- 
ment to  his  genius,"  Mr.  Knight  reflects,  "could 
reconcile  players  to  a  partner  who  ignored  or 
scorned  the  elementary  rules  of  the  game  and  who 
could  only  be  regarded  as  a  third  enemy.  In  1863 
he  was  in  Belgium  again,  and  in  the  following  year 
revisited  Paris,  this  being  the  last  of  his  short,  in- 
frequent trips  to  the  Continent.  Manet  had  re- 
cently come  up  with  his  new  point  of  view  and 
iconoclastic  methods,  and  this  is  what  Rossetti  in 
full  maturity  found  to  say  of  him  and  his  followers  : 
'  It  is  well  worth  while  for  English  painters  to  try 
and  do  something  now,  as  the  new  French  school  is 


Xifc  at  Cbepne  IKflalfc  anb  Ikelmscott.    151 

simple  putrescence  and  decomposition.  There  is  a 
man  named  Manet  (to  whose  studio  I  was  taken 
by  Fantin),  whose  pictures  are  for  the  most  part 
mere  scrawls,  and  who  seems  to  be  one  of  the  lights 
of  the  school.  Courbet,  the  head  of  it,  is  not  much 
better."  Much  more  truly  than  he  realised  did  Ros- 
setti  describe  himself  when  he  said  on  this  same 
visit :  "  I  keep  in  so  narrow  a  circle  that  I  see  little 
of  the  change." 

The  financial  history  of  the  decade  between  his 
wife's  death  and  the  first  serious  breakdown  in  his 
health,  in  1872,  is  a  triumphant  record  of  increasing 
prosperity.  He  had  not  long  been  settled  in  Cheyne 
Walk  before  needing  an  art  assistant.  In  1866  he 
was  getting  four  hundred  and  fifty  guineas  for  his 
Lady  Lilith  and  considering  three  hundred  guineas  a 
small  price  for  the  Beata  Beatrix.  That  year  his  in- 
come was  rather  more  than  a  thousand  pounds  and 
the  next  year  it  fell  little  if  any  below  three  thousand. 
In  business  transactions  he  was  no  dreamer,  but 
clear-headed,  firm,  and  competent.  In  managing 
the  money  he  thus  efficiently  earned  he  was  little 
better  than  a  child.  The  cheques  he  received  he 
cashed,  and  stuffed  the  money  into  an  open  drawer. 
"  Money  dripped  from  his  fingers,"  says  his  brother, 
"  in  all  sorts  of  ways,  unforecast  at  the  time,  and 
not  always  easily  accounted  for  afterwards."  He 
was  lavish,  both  in  generosity  and  in  self-indulgence, 
feeling  himself  "  doubly  bound  "  by  his  exemption 
from  the  cares  of  a  family  to  provide  for  the  children 


152  £be  IRossettis. 

of  an  old  friend,  and  unable  to  deny  himself  a  super- 
fluous zebu  though  he  must  borrow  to  pay  for  it. 
Although  to  the  end  his  income  was  large,  he  had, 
in  his  own  words,  "  never  a  penny  to  fly  with." 

While  he  was  positive  and  uncompromising  with 
the  purchasers  of  his  pictures,  and  at  times  kept 
them  waiting  long  and  anxiously  for  the  work  they 
had  commissioned  and  paid  for  (as  in  the  case  of 
Professor  Norton's  Before  the  Battle,  commissioned 
in  1858  and  delivered  in  1862),  he  was  nevertheless 
usually  on  excellent  terms  with  them.  Mr.  Leyland, 
who  at  the  time  of  Rossetti's  death  owned  a  collec- 
tion of  his  pictures  "second  to  none  —  or  indeed 
superior  to  all  others,"  held  him  in  a  regard  rather 
more  than  brotherly  as  the  relations  of  brothers 
commonly  stand.  Leyland,  Mr.  Prinsep  says,  was 
a  proud,  reserved  man,  who  from  his  youth  made 
few  friends.  He  "  hated  disorder,  untidiness,  or 
unpunctuality."  Rossetti  on  the  other  hand  "was 
impressionable,  enthusiastic,  unmethodical,  yet  Ley- 
land,  though  he  was  often  tried  by  Rossetti's  want 
of  method  never  wavered  in  his  affection  for  him 
from  the  moment  he  became  intimate  with  him  till 
he  went  over  to  see  him  die,  and  stood  by  his  grave 
at  Birchington-by-the-Sea.  Nor  after  his  death  did 
his  affection  diminish." 

Rossetti's  habits  of  work  during  these  years  were 
more  methodical,  perhaps,  but  not  more  reasonable 
than  in  his  youth.  Going  to  bed  at  three,  four,  or 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  rose  when  he  liked 


Xlfe  at  Cbe^ne  Walfc  anb  ftelmscott.    153 

and  breakfasted  at  the  hour  he  chose  and  alone,  ir- 
respective of  any  guests  who  might  be  staying  in 
the  house.  He  then  painted  as  long  as  the  light 
served  him,  and  at  nine  or  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening 
started  off  on  his  nocturnal  rambles  or  cab  drives, 
something  after  the  fashion  of  Haroun  Al  Raschid, 
giving  rise  to  many  a  rumour  concerning  him,  and 
accentuating  the  impression  of  eccentricity  made  on 
the  public  mind.  In  1867  and  1868  there  are  omin- 
ous intimations  of  sinking  vitality.  The  question 
of  his  ability  to  sleep  comes  into  his  letters,  in- 
somnia had  obviously  begun,  and  he  was,  in  his 
brother's  words,  "one  of  the  worst  men  living  to 
cope  with  the  fell  antagonist."  In  addition,  toward 
the  end  of  the  summer  of  1867  his  eyesight  weak- 
ened greatly  as  a  result  of  overstrained  nerves,  and 
he  was  fearful  of  repeating  his  father's  fate  of  almost 
total  blindness.  This  never  happened,  nor  did  his 
health  decline  steadily,  but  there  were  frequent  and 
distressing  lapses  from  a  normal  condition.  In  1870, 
he  tried  the  experiment  of  chloral  at  the  suggestion 
of  Mr.  W.  J.  Stillman,  but  this  first  introduction  to 
the  drug  was  not,  it  seems,  the  actual  beginning  of 
the  habit  later  formed.  The  facts  are  given  in  a  let- 
ter by  Mr.  Stillman  to  The  Academy  (March  19, 
1898),  from  which  the  following  extracts  are  taken: 
"  During  the  first  year  of  my  intimacy  with  Dante 
(1870),"  he  says,  "  and  when  I  was  a  good  deal  at 
Cheyne  Walk,  he  was  greatly  troubled  by  insom- 
nia, to  such  an  extent  indeed,  that  he  had  then 


154  £be  IRoseettte. 

suspended  work,  and  had  fallen  into  a  morbid  and 
despondent  mood  with  delusions.  The  efforts  of  his 
family  to  induce  him  to  go  into  the  country,  or  take 
any  change,  were  ineffective,  and  finding  him  in  a 
really  dangerous  state  of  mind,  I  advised  trying 
chloral,  which  I  had  been  using  under  the  advice  of 
my  physician,  and  I  gave  him  of  my  own  supply, 
twenty  grains  dissolved  in  three  ounces  of  water,  a 
tablespoonful  to  be  taken  three  nights  in  succession, 
and  then  no  more  until  three  days  had  elapsed,  when 
if  it  had  the  effect  desired  I  would  have  repeated  the 
supply.  He  forgot  it  until  the  third  day,  and  then 
took  the  three  doses  at  once.  The  effect  was  not 
satisfactory,  and  he  reported  that  he  did  not  care  to 
repeat  it,  as  it  gave  him  a  short  fit  of  profound 
stupor  after  which  his  sleeplessness  was  worse  than 
before  and  he  refused  to  try  it  again.  At  that  junc- 
ture Mme.  Bodichon,  who  was  a  dear  friend  of  both 
Dante  and  myself,  had  offered  me  her  cottage  at 
Scalands  for  a  few  weeks'  residence,  and  with  her 
consent  I  invited  Dante  to  make  me  a  visit  there. 
He  accepted  and  we  stayed,  I  think,  three  months, 
in  which  time  he  entirely  recovered  his  sleep  and 
power  of  working,  making  some  of  his  best  draw- 
ings there,  but  during  the  whole  time  he  thought  no 
more  of  chloral,  nor  did  he  need  any  soporific.  I 
left  him,  with  Mme.  Bodichon's  consent,  at  Sca- 
lands, and  returned  to  America.  At  a  later  date  I 
learned  that  he  had  taken  to  chloral  and  had  fallen 
into  the  morbid  state  in  which  I  had  found  him  in 


OLifc  at  <Tbe$ne  Malfc  anfc  IRelmscott     155 

1870,  with  delusions  still  more  distressing,  intensi- 
fied by  some  of  the  criticisms  on  his  book  which  he 
had  finished  and  published  while  we  were  at  Sea- 
lands.  He  had  taken  the  chloral  by  the  advice  of  a 
physician,  whose  prescription  he  had  made  up  at 
several  druggists'  simultaneously  as  the  amount  did 
not  satisfy  his  craving.  Between  my  prescription 
and  his  acquiring  the  habit  of  misuse  of  the  drug 
there  was  no  connection  whatever,  for  a  consider- 
able time  had  elapsed  between  the  two  events.  It 
was  at  some  time  when  I  was  away  from  London 
that  the  habit  began,  for  the  intimacy  between  us 
when  I  was  in  London  was  such  that  he  could  not 
have  taken  it  up  without  my  knowledge,  and  I  was 
unaware  that  he  had  done  so  until  the  misuse  had 
become  very  grave.  In  any  case  I  declare  in  the 
most  positive  manner  that  my  recommendation  of 
the  drug  had  only  produced  peremptory  rejection  of 
it  as  a  remedy  for  his  insomnia." 

The  description  of  Rossetti  forgetting  the  remedy 
for  a  couple  of  nights  and  then  taking  three  doses  of 
it  at  once,  recalls  the  story  in  Mr.  Caine's  book 
which  Rossetti  is  said  to  have  told  of  himself  "  with 
infinite  zest."  Having  nux  vomica  to  take  for  a  con- 
dition of  nervous  exhaustion,  he  remembered  one 
afternoon  that  he  had  not  yet  taken  the  first  of  his 
three  daily  doses.  "  He  forthwith  took  it,  and  upon 
setting  down  the  glass,  reflected  that  the  second 
dose  was  due  and  so  he  took  that  also.  Putting 
on  his  hat  and  preparing  to  sally  forth,  he  further 


156  £be  IRossettte. 

reflected  that  before  he  could  return  the  third  dose 
ought  in  ordinary  course  to  be  taken,  and  so  without 
more  deliberation  he  poured  himself  a  final  portion 
and  drank  it  off.  He  had  thereupon  scarcely  turned 
himself  about,  when  to  his  horror  he  discovered  that 
his  limbs  were  growing  rigid  and  his  jaw  stiff.  In 
the  utmost  agitation  he  tried  to  walk  across  the 
studio  and  found  himself  almost  incapable  of  the 
effort.  His  eyes  seemed  to  leap  out  of  their  sockets 
and  his  sight  grew  dim.  Appalled  and  in  agony,  he 
at  length  sprang  up  from  the  couch  upon  which  he 
had  dropped  down  a  moment  before,  and  fled  out 
of  the  house.  The  violent  action  speedily  induced 
a  copious  perspiration,  and  this,  being  by  much  the 
best  thing  that  could  have  happened  to  him,  carried 
off  the  poison  and  so  saved  his  life."  He  could 
never  afterwards  be  induced  to  return  to  the  drug  in 
question,  Mr.  Caine  declares,  and  in  the  last  year  of 
his  life  was  more  aghast  at  seeing  him  take  a  harm- 
less dose  of  it  than  he  would  have  been  at  hearing 
that  fifty  grains  of  chloral  had  been  taken.  Unquest- 
ionably he  was  not  sufficiently  strong  in  pharma- 
cology to  dally  with  a  powefrul  drug.  However  it 
came  about  that  the  chloral  habit  was  formed,  by 
1872  its  effects  were  wofully  prominent.  The  2nd  of 
June  of  that  year  his  brother  declares  the  most  mis- 
erable day  of  his  life,  as  Rossetti's  wild  talk  on  that 
day  showed  that  beyond  doubt  he  was  not  entirely 
sane. 

Delusions  ran  riot  in  his  mind,  and  were  of  the 


life  at  Cbepne  Walfc  ant)  IRelmscott    157 

unhappy  nature  of  prejudices  against  friends  of 
long  standing  and  complete  fidelity.  Browning, 
the  "glorious  Robert"  of  the  early  visit  to  Paris, 
was  one  of  these.  His  Fifine  at  the  Fair,  just  then 
published,  was  supposed  to  contain  at  its  close  some 
lines  of  spiteful  reference  to  Rossetti,  and  that  friend- 
ship collapsed  in  hopeless  ruin,  the  two  men  never 
again  meeting  or  holding  any  communication  with 
one  another.  An  even  more  extravagant  fancy 
ranged  Mr.  Dodgson  with  the  conspirators  who  as- 
sailed him,  the  famous  verses  on  the  Hunting  of  the 
Snark  constituting  a  pasquinade  against  him. 

After  a  consultation  of  physicians,  Dr.  Hake,  a 
friend  who,  to  borrow  the  words  of  William  Ros- 
setti, was  the  earthly  Providence  of  the  Rossetti 
family  in  those  dark  days,  opened  his  house  at  Roe- 
hampton  to  the  patient,  for  whom  change  of  scene 
was  prescribed.  On  the  journey  and  after  his  arrival 
poor  Rossetti's  mental  disturbance  was  shown  in  a 
variety  of  disquieting  manifestations.  He  was  per- 
secuted by  the  sound  of  imaginary  voices  besetting 
him  with  terms  of  obloquy,  and  during  his  second 
night  at  Roehampton,  goaded  to  the  limit  of  endur- 
ance, he  made  an  attempt  to  end  his  life  by  means 
of  laudanum,  which,  unknown  to  his  friends,  he  had 
brought  with  him.  He  was  unconscious  for  some- 
thing more  than  twenty-four  hours,  and  his  family 
hastened  to  his  bedside  hopeless  of  his  recovery. 
The  efforts  of  Dr.  Hake  and  of  his  old  friend  John 
Marshall  were  successful,  however,  in  rescuing  him, 


158  £be  IRossettis. 

and  he  revived,  to  enter  upon  his  last  decade  in 
utter  prostration  of  spirit  and  in  bodily  discomfort. 
Thereafter  he  was  to  sink  gradually,  though  still 
with  frequent  respites  and  returns  to  the  appearance 
of  health,  under  the  dominion  of  a  drug  as  insidious 
and  deadly  as  that  which  reigned  over  the  minds  of 
Coleridge  and  De  Quincy. 

His  way  of  life  had  for  some  time  been  changing 
toward  increased  seclusion  and  freedom  from  the 
responsibility  of  social  claims.  A  few  of  his  early 
friends  had  dropped  out  of  his  circle.  Ruskin  was 
estranged,  and  Hunt ;  and  Woolner,  the  P.-R.  B.,  was 
no  longer  his  intimate  ;  but  when  the  crash  in  his 
health  came  his  old  friend  Madox  Brown,  Bell  Scott, 
and  Dr.  Hake  whom  he  had  then  known  three  years, 
drew  at  once  to  his  side,  and  with  one  or  more  of 
them  to  give  care  and  companionship  he  was  taken 
to  Perthshire,  Scotland,  where  Mr.  Graham,  the  pur- 
chaser of  many  of  his  pictures,  put  his  two  country- 
places  at  his  disposal.  In  each  of  these  he  stayed 
for  a  little  time,  and  then  settled  for  a  month  or 
more  at  a  quiet  farmhouse  at  Trowan  Crieff,  where 
he  lived  as  wholesome  a  life  as  possible,  "  stumping 
his  way,"  Dr.  Hake  records,  "over  long  areas  of 
path  and  road  with  his  thick  stick  in  hand,  but  hold- 
ing no  intercourse  with  Nature"  ;  eating  heartily  as 
was  his  habit,  and  supplied  by  the  attentive  Graham 
with  hampers  of  grouse,  hares,  partridges,  and  gain- 
ing steadily  in  the  power  to  sleep  through  Dr. 
Hake's  devotion  in  sitting  nightly  by  his  bedside  and 


life  at  Cbepne  TKHalfc  anfc  Ikelmscott.     159 

repeating  every  anecdote  he  had  ever  heard,  and 
relating  every  amusing  incident  of  his  intercourse 
with  the  world.  In  this  way  he  presently  was  in  a 
condition  to  resume  work,  and  left  Scotland  toward 
the  end  of  September  to  go  to  Kelmscott  Manor- 
house  which  he  had  taken  in  conjunction  with  Mor- 
ris the  year  before,  in  order  to  have  a  place  in  the 
country  where  he  could  leave  his  belongings,  and 
to  which  he  could  retreat  for  work  as  opportunity 
offered.  The  opportunity  had  now  come  in  the 
shape  of  a  virtual  necessity,  and  until  the  end 
of  July,  1874,  Rossetti  made  his  headquarters  at 
Kelmscott. 

"  It  is  a  most  lovely  old  house,"  he  had  written 
from  there  in  1871.  "It  still  belongs  to  the  family 
whose  ancestors  built  it,  and  whose  arms  are  still  on 
some  of  the  chimney-breasts.  The  garden  and 
meadows  leading  to  the  river-brink  are  truly  de- 
licious —  indeed  the  place  is  perfect :  and  the  river- 
side walks  are  most  charming  in  their  way,  though 
I  must  say  the  flatness  of  the  country  renders  it 
monotonous  and  uninspiring  to  me.  However,  it  is 
the  very  essence  of  all  that  is  peaceful  and  retired - 
the  solitude  almost  absolute.  Kelmscott  is  a  hamlet 
containing,  I  am  told,  117  people,  and  these  even  one 
may  be  said  never  to  see,  if  one  keeps,  as  I  do,  the 
field-paths  rather  than  the  highroad." 

During  his  long  sojourn  the  solitude  within  the 
house  was  by  no  means  absolute.  One  or  more 
members  of  the  Morris  family  were  most  of  the  time 


160  £be  IRoseettis. 


present,  Rossetti's  friends  and  family  visited  him 
from  time  to  time,  and  Dr.  Hake's  son,  Mr.  George 
Hake,  was  with  him  in  the  capacity  of  secretary. 
His  family  letters  of  this  period  are  not  conspicuous 
for  gloom  or  even  great  dejection.  The  letters  to 
his  mother  in  particular  are  affectionately  playful  in 
tone  and  contain  many  details  of  the  beautiful  gar- 
den and  surrounding  country  apparently  observed 
chiefly  for  her  entertainment.  The  antics  of  his 
dogs  are  also  chronicled,  and  there  are  very  pleasant 
glimpses  of  his  kindly  relations  to  the  Morris  child- 
ren who  served  him  both  as  models  and  companions. 
While  his  health  lapsed  again  toward  the  close  of 
his  stay,  and  his  mischievous  habits  of  dining  late, 
and  sitting  up  most  of  the  night,  to  purchase  sleep 
at  last  with  heavy  doses  of  chloral,  were  all  tending 
to  make  permanent  recovery  impossible,  he  was 
nevertheless  neither  morose  nor  devoid  of  consola- 
tions. During  his  first  year  at  Kelmscott  he  found 
a  friend  after  his  own  heart,  Theodore  Watts-Dunton, 
who  came  to  understand  him  on  the  most  hidden 
and  subtle  sides  of  his  nature,  and  who  would  one 
day,  he  thought,  show  him  as  he  was  to  a  world 
of  misinterpreters.  The  versatility  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  mind  and  Dr.  Hake's  custom  of  quoting 
him  as  an  authority  on  every  subject  that  came  up 
in  conversation,  caused  Rossetti  before  meeting  him 
to  regard  him  with  amusement.  The  "Oraculum 
of  the  hayfields  "  he  called  him,  but  after  meeting 
him  he  won  from  him  a  tender  regard  and  devotion 


Xife  at  Cbesne  Malfc  anfc  Itelmecott    161 

that  made  the  friendship  between  the  two  unique  in 
beauty.  Their  first  intercourse  came  about  through 
some  legal  service  that  Mr.  Watts -Dunton  in  his 
capacity  of  solicitor  rendered  Rossetti.  In  the  end 
there  seems  to  have  been  hardly  any  service  that  he 
did  not  render  him.  A  poet  himself  and  a  discern- 
ing and  original  critic,  his  companionship  was  stimul- 
ating to  him  in  his  best  hours,  and  in  his  worst  there  is 
perhaps  but  one —  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  himself — who 
knows  the  extent  to  which  was  exercised  that  power 
to  soothe  and  cheer  by  which  Rossetti's  life,  accord- 
ing to  his  physician,  was  more  than  once  actually 
saved.  One  of  the  last  phrases  upon  Rossetti's  lips 
was  this  :  "  Watts  is  a  hero  of  friendship,"  and  so 
much  a  hero  he  was  that  he  has  never,  since  Ros- 
setti's death,  magnified  by  an  infinitesimal  degree  his 
office  of  friendship  —  that  office  most  difficult  of  any 
to  estimate  with  true  humility.  "What  was  called 
my  'self-sacrifice,'"  he  writes,  "was  not  and  could 
not  be,  any  self-sacrifice  at  all.  It  is  no  self-sacrifice 
to  spend  one's  time  with  a  man  whose  society  gives 
such  an  immensity  of  pleasure  as  Rossetti's  gave 
me,"  and  the  best  tribute  to  be  paid  is  absolutely  to 
believe  this  statement  of  his  feeling. 

Rossetti's  personal  appearance  at  this  time  has 
been  described  by  several  of  his  friends,  who  remem- 
ber it  in  every  detail,  they  think,  with  precision. 
No  two  of  these  accounts  agree  in  all  particulars, 
but  the  composite  portrait  gained  from  them  shows 
a  man  of  rather  low  middle  stature  (five  feet  seven 


1 62  Gbe  IRossettis. 

or  eight)  with  feet  and  hands  as  small  as  a  woman's, 
and  a  tendency  to  stoutness.  On  the  face  alone  was 
the  signature  of  his  winning  and  impressive  person- 
ality. Here  in  the  noble  forehead  on  which  the  thin 
hair  curled  slightly  about  the  temples,  in  the  eyes  of 
a  colour  between  hazel  and  blue-grey,  with  inde- 
scribable lights  moving  and  alive  in  the  deeps  of  the 
pupils  ;  and  the  strongly  marked  straight  nose  with 
wide  nostrils,  we  see  all  that  was  beautiful  or  im- 
posing in  Rossetti's  physical  aspect.  His  mouth, 
covered  by  a  dark-brown  moustache,  was  rather  too 
full  and  loose-lipped  to  be  attractive,  and  was  slightly 
satirical  in  expression.  His  voice  was  singularly 
rich,  mellow,  sympathetic,  and  powerful,  of  bell-like 
tone  and  sonority;  "a  voice,"  Mr.  Gosse  declares, 
"  capable  of  expressing  without  effort  every  shade 
of  emotion  from  rage  and  terror  to  the  most  sublime 
tenderness.  I  have  never  heard  a  voice  so  fitted  for 
poetical  effect,  so  purely  imaginative,  and  yet,  in  its 
absence  of  rhetoric,  so  clear  and  various  as  that  of 
Gabriel  Rossetti." 

Those  whose  privilege  it  was  to  meet  him,  says 
the  same  writer,  "in  the  plenitude  of  his  powers 
and  in  the  freshness  of  their  own  impressions,  will 
not  expect  to  be  moved  again  through  life  by  so 
magnetic  a  presence." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
PAINTING  FROM  1862  TO  1870. 

ROSSETTI'S  paintings  during  this  interval  be- 
tween his  wife's  death  and  the  great  break- 
down in  his  health  just  recorded,  were 
gradually  changing  character,  and  taking  on  certain 
qualities  of  colour  and  type  and  handling  associated 
now  in  the  public  mind  with  what  has  come  to  be 
considered  his  peculiar  style,  the  kind  of  picture  that, 
when  his  name  is  mentioned,  rises  before  the  mental 
vision  of  those  unfamiliar  with  the  widest  range  of 
his  work.  From  the  full  and  varied  compositions, 
the  small  canvases,  the  dry,  lustreless  medium  of 
the  earlier  period,  he  passed  to  the  large  single-figure 
subjects,  rich  and  fervid  in  colour,  and  painted  with 
a  comparatively  fluid  vehicle.  Romantic  and  re- 
ligious symbols  largely  gave  place  to  magnificence 
of  decoration,  sensitive  and  refined  forms  to  full  and 
massive  ones.  The  picture  that  heralded  this  Vene- 
tian manner  in  its  chief  attributes  was  one  to  which 
it  was  triumphantly  appropriate  :  The  Beloved.  "  I 
mean  it  to  be  like  jewels,"  Rossetti  wrote  of  it  to 

163 


164  £be  IRossettte. 

Mr.  Rae  for  whom  it  was  painted ;  and  "no  one  who 
has  not  seen  it,"  says  Mr.  Marillier,  "can  form  the 
most  remote  conception  of  its  brilliance."  The  sub- 
ject is  the  bride  of  Solomon's  Song  :  "  Behold,  thou 
art  fair,  my  love,  behold,  thou  art  fair :  thou  hast 
dove's  eyes."  In  the  centre  is  the  bride  sumptuously 
clad  in  green  embroidered  robes,  behind  her  a  group 
of  four  virgins,  and  before  her  a  little  negro  boy 
with  a  golden  vase  of  roses  in  his  hands.  In  the 
bride's  hair  and  on  her  neck  are  gorgeous  ornaments, 
and  the  negro  is  also  thus  bedecked  ;  the  virgins  are 
carrying  branches  of  japonica  and  tiger-lily.  Ros- 
setti's  old  friend  and  P.-R.  Brother,  F.  G.  Stephens, 
finds  The  Beloved  the  "finest  production  of  his 
genius"  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  later 
works,  "  where  sentiment  of  a  more  exalted  sort,  as 
in  Proserpine,  inspired  the  designs."  "  Of  his  skill  in 
the  high  artistic  sense,"  he  adds,  "implying  the 
vanquishment  of  prodigious  difficulties — difficulties 
the  greater  because  of  his  imperfect  technical  educa- 
tion— there  cannot  be  two  just  opinions  as  to  the 
preeminence  of  Mr.  Rae's  magnificent  possession. 
It  indicates  the  consummation  of  Rossetti's  powers 
in  the  highest  order  of  modern  art,  and  is  in  har- 
mony with  that  poetic  inspiration  which  is  found  in 
every  one  of  his  more  ambitious  pictures."  In  this 
picture  Rossetti  took  more  than  usual  satisfaction, 
perhaps  because  he  had  tried  for  the  beauty  of  visible 
form  and  colour  and  left  out  of  consideration  the 
more  subtle  psychological  suggestions  ordinarily 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 

From  a  photograph,  Cheyne  Walk,  1864. 


' 

' 

I    : 


paintina  from  1862  to  1870.          165 

engrossing  his  ardent  attention.  He  had  taken  a 
painter's  subject,  had  employed  for  his  principal 
figure  a  hired  model,  and  had  momentarily  freed 
himself  from  the  mystical  side  of  his  temperament. 
He  was  in  a  sense  asserting  his  independence  of 
himself  and  at  the  same  time  giving  play  to  his  ap- 
preciation of  purely  external  beauty.  Looking  at 
the  reproduction  in  Mr.  Marillier's  book  which  to  a 
great  degree  preserves  the  impression  of  a  canvas 
dyed  with  resplendent  hues,  we  see  how  much  of 
Rossetti  is  left  out  of  The  Beloved,  and  how  compar- 
atively tame  is  the  result  divested  of  its  colour.  In 
the  sweet  eyes  of  the  bride,  in  the  little  face  of  the 
negro,  chosen  as  a  bit  of  "  invaluable  jet "  and  in  the 
spirited  face  of  the  gypsy,  we  have  vital  hints  of 
reality  and  suggestion,  but  the  Rossetti  elements  of 
strangeness  and  fervour  are  absent.  Very  different 
is  the  case  with  Lady  Lilith,  painted  about  the  same 
time  (1864),  in  which  there  is  a  similar  frank  attempt 
to  realise  the  utmost  charm  of  radiant  loveliness  in 
colour  and  line.  This  was  one  of  the  pictures  that 
Rossetti  could  not  let  alone,  and  in  1873  he  scraped 
out  the  head,  which  was  painted  from  the  model 
''Fanny  Cornforth  "  (Mrs.  Schott),  and  replaced  it 
with  a  very  different  type  of  head  painted  from  Miss 
Alexa  Wilding  who  was  then  posing  for  his  more 
important  pictures.  Those  who  have  seen  both 
versions  are  unanimous  in  preferring  the  earlier,  but 
the  photograph  obtained  from  it  certainly  in  some 
respects  upholds  Rossetti 's  own  favourable  view  of 


166  £be  IRossettte. 

the  change.  His  problem  was  to  paint  a  fair,  witch- 
like  woman,  magnificently  beautiful,  with  sinister 
intimations  of  cruelty  and  craft  in  her  expression. 
The  first  type  of  face,  with  parted  lips,  calm  eyes, 
level  lids  and  full  chin,  represents  a  combination  of 
coldness  and  vanity  adequately  enough,  but  fails 
entirely  to  give  the  expression  of  sorcery,  of  un- 
earthly enchantment,  which  was  in  his  mind  and 
which  he  embodied  in  the  sonnet  engraved  upon  the 
frame.1  In  the  later  face  his  craftsmanship  came  to 
the  aid  of  his  imagination  and  fixed  upon  the  can- 
vas the  primary  idea  with  a  power  and  refinement 
of  interpretation  singular  even  in  Rossetti.  The 
significant  changes  are  in  the  languid  eyes  with  the 
arched  shadow  above  them,  and  the  peculiar  curve 
of  the  lids  lending  a  passionless  melancholy  to  the 
look ;  in  the  drooping  lines  of  the  richly  modelled 
mouth,  and  in  the  firmer  and  more  delicate  line  of 
the  throat  and  the  deeper  cutting  of  the  chin.  The 
character  thus  introduced  saves  the  subject  from  the 
merely  commonplace  vanity  of  the  earlier  presenta- 

1  The  sonnet  on  the  frame  of  the  Lady  Lilith  which  belongs  to  Mr.  Bancroft  of 
Wilmington,  Delaware,  differs  in  the  sestet  from  that  quoted  in  Mr.  Stephens's  mono* 
graph  and  published  in  the  collected  poems.  Mr.  Bancroft's  version  runs  : 

"  Rose,  foxglove,  poppy  are  her  flowers  ;  for  where 
Is  he  not  found,  O  Lilith,  whom  shed  scent 

And  soft-shed  fingers  and  soft  sleep  shall  snare  ? 
Lo  !  as  that  youth's  eyes  burned  at  thine,  so  went 
Thy  spell  through  him,  and  left  his  straight  neck  bent 

And  round  his  heart  one  strangling  golden  hair." 

In  the  other  versions  the  first  line  reads  : 

"The  rose  and  poppy  are  her  flowers  ;  "  and  in  the  third  line  "kisses" 
is  substituted  for  "  fingers." 


painting  from  1862  to  1870.          167 

tion,  and  gives  to  it  the  shadow  of  fatality  and  the 
potent  magnetism  necessary  to  dignify  it  and  raise  it 
above  the  ordinary  conception  of  the  pride  of  beauty. 
The  colouring  carries  out  the  impression  of  sombre 
interest  subduing  the  ample  splendour  of  the  effect. 
Rossetti  somewhere  speaks  of  Coleridge  as  possess- 
ing the  sense  of  the  momentous  :  "  not  the  weird 
and  ominous  only,  but  the  value  of  monumental 
moments,"  and  the  corresponding  sense  in  himself 
of  the  strangeness  of  certain  aspects  of  life,  the 
tremendous  importance  of  the  tendencies  toward 
good  or  evil  of  the  soul,  forbade  his  leaving  this  sub- 
ject of  "the  Strangler"  drawing  men  "to  watch  the 
bright  net  she  can  weave  till  heart  and  body  and  life 
are  in  its  hold,"  before  he  had  made  it  express  not 
merely  the  superficial  meaning  obvious  to  the  lightest 
thinker,  but  also  the  tragedy  of  its  perilous  charm. 
To  do  this  by  virtue  of  facial  expression  alone,  or 
supported  only  by  a  sympathetic  treatment  of  colour 
was  the  triumph  of  Rossetti 's  idiosyncrasy.  What 
others  might  have  done  by  illustrative  composition, 
he  achieved  by  his  power  to  see  the  human  soul  at 
its  most  elusive  moments  revealed  in  the  human 
face. 

The  Lady  Lilith  hangs  in  the  home  of  its  present 
owner  adjacent  to  the  noble  Council  Chamber  by 
Burne  Jones,  and  majestically  superior  to  it  in  pro- 
founder  symbolism  and  mastery  of  one  chapter  in 
the  psychological  story.  To  have  read  of  the  mas- 
sive waves  of  reddish  golden  hair,  the  crimson 


1 68  ZTbe  1Ros0ettte. 

mouth,  the  abundant  roses  of  the  background,  the 
creamy  draperies,  the  flashing  landscape  reflected  in 
the  larger  mirror  leads  one  to  expect  a  sudden  greet- 
ing of  blazing  colour  from  the  big  canvas  confronting 
the  door.  The  eyes  most  certainly  meet  nothing 
dark  or  heavy,  but  they  are  not  for  a  moment  dazzled. 
The  strong,  vivid  hues  are  fused  into  such  unity,  the 
accents  of  light  and  of  pure  colour  have  been  so 
restrained,  the  large  surfaces  kept  so  low  in  tone, 
as  to  give  such  an  effect  as  might  be  gained  from  a 
southern  landscape  shielded  from  the  sun  except 
where  a  single  ray  might  touch  a  cardinal-flower. 
The  white  roses  with  their  occasional  pink  buds  are 
softened  to  a  warm  grey  tone  mottling  the  back- 
ground in  dim  patches  ;  the  wealth  of  tumbling  hair 
through  which  Lilith  is  drawing  her  comb  is  dark 
red  in  its  shadow,  a  dusky  brown  in  its  half-tones, 
with  crisp  gold  high  lights  on  the  crests  of  its  rich 
waves;  the  dress  and  mantle  are  nearly  all  in  partial 
shadow ;  the  firm  flesh  of  the  throat  and  bust, 
modelled  with  a  feeling  for  massive  forms  greatly 
unlike  the  slim  shapes  of  Rossetti's  early  pictures,  is 
dark  for  the  fair  skin  of  the  face,  with  warm  green- 
ish tones ;  the  reds  that  gleam  through  the  colour 
scheme  like  a  bright  thread  in  tapestry,  range  from 
the  reddish  violet  of  the  foxglove,  through  the  crim- 
son cord  of  the  hand  mirror,  the  coral  bracelet,  the 
red  of  the  mouth  and  the  scarcely  deeper  red  of 
the  poppy,  to  the  shadows  of  the  hair.  The  eyes 
are  grey  ;  the  sunny  landscape  reflected  in  the  glass 


Lady  Lilith. 

Photographed  from  original  by  courtesy  of  the  owner, 
Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft.,  Jr. 


ttbe  Kc 


painting  from  1862  to  1870,          169 

is  the  tint  of  ripening  foliage.  In  connection  with 
this  combination  of  colours  it  is  interesting  to  read  a 
fragmentary  note  made  by  Rossetti  in  1866.  "Think- 
ing in  what  order  I  love  colours,"  he  wrote,  "  found 
the  following  :  - 

1.  Pure  light  warm  green. 

2.  Deep  gold-colour. 

3.  Certain  tints  of  grey. 

4.  Shadowy  or  steel  blue. 

5.  Brown,  with  crimson  tinge. 

6.  Scarlet. 

"  Other  colours  (comparatively)  only  lovable  ac- 
cording to  the  relations  in  which  they  are  placed." 

The  association  of  colour  and  sentiment  was  al- 
ways a  marked  feature  of  Rossetti's  painting,  from 
the  white  purity  of  the  early  religious  pictures  to 
the  cold,  gloomy  blues  of  Proserpine,  and  Mr.  Ste- 
phens draws  attention  to  instances  in  which  he 
seems  also  to  have  adopted  the  rather  modern  no- 
tion of  symbolising  music  with  colour,  notably  The 
Blue  Closet,  which  Mr.  Stephens  describes  as  follows: 

"  Four  damsels  appear  in  the  composition,  two  of 
whom  sing.  Their  dresses  are  respectively  subdued 
purple  and  black,  and  pure  emerald  green  and  white. 
They  occupy  the  rear  of  the  group.  The  other  pair 
are  instrumentalists,  and  play  on  a  double-keyed 
clavichord  (a  sort  of  a  dulcimer)  placed  between 
them,  while  the  one  pinches  the  strings  of  a  lute  at 
her  side,  and  her  companion  pulls  the  string  of  a 
little  bell  hanging  next  to  the  lute.  The  chief 


1 70  Gbe  IRossettis. 

colours  of  the  foreground  and  its  figures  are  those 
of  the  black-and-gold  tapestry  over  the  clavichord, 
the  gold  of  the  musical  instruments,  the  white  and 
crimson  of  the  lute-player's  garments,  the  scarlet, 
green,  and  white  of  those  of  her  companion.  As  to 
the  association  of  colour  with  music  we  may  notice 
that  the  sharp  accents  of  the  scarlet  and  green  seem 
to  go  with  the  sound  of  the  bell ;  the  softer  crimson, 
purple,  and  white  accord  with  the  throbbing  notes 
of  the  lute  and  the  clavichord,  while  the  dulcet, 
flute-like  voices  of  the  girls  appear  to  agree  with 
those  azure  tiles  on  the  wall  and  floor  which  gave 
this  fascinating  drawing  its  name  of  The  Blue  Closet. " 
We  have  already  seen  that  Rossetti's  pictures, 
while  they  bear  the  impress  in  almost  every  case  of 
his  subtle  individuality,  and  are  readily  grouped  to 
correspond  in  a  general  way  to  definite  divisions  of 
his  life,  occasionally  include  extreme  variations.  In 
the  remarkable  picture  called  Found,  for  example,  be- 
gun in  1854  and  worked  upon  for  the  last  time  in 
1882,  only  to  be  left  unfinished  in  the  end,  we  have 
a  nineteenth-century  subject,  treated  in  a  modern 
spirit,  and  painted  in  a  general  tone  of  cold  grey, 
not,  certainly,  in  Rossetti's  list  of  "  lovable  colours  " 
at  any  period  of  his  artistic  career.  In  the  Dr.  John- 
son at  the  Mitre,  already  described,  we  have  the  one 
genre-painting,  the  one  homely  and  humorous,  to 
be  found  in  his  collected  works.  And  again  in  the 
Joan  of  Arc,  painted  probably  in  1862  (though  possi- 
bly later),  and  now  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  S.  T. 


painting  from  1862  to  1870.          171 

Peters  of  New  York,  we  have  a  type  of  face  entirely 
unlike  the  types  usually  chosen  by  him,  and  a  subject 
equally  removed  from  the  bent  of  his  fancy,  as  in  it 
he  devoted  his  energies  to  bringing  out  the  martial 
and  not  the  mystical  side  of  the  warrior  maid.  It 
would  be  natural  to  expect  from  a  painter  of  his  tem- 
perament the  Joan  of  the  visions,  with  eyes  at  least 
as  full  of  dreams  as  Bastien  Lepage  has  painted  them. 
Instead  he  has  shown  her  in  the  act  of  kissing  the 
sword  of  deliverance,  with  resolution,  not  revery  or 
inspiration,  in  her  look.  The  face  was  painted  from 
a  German  model,  is  boyish  in  feature,  and  fierce  and 
strong  in  expression.  The  dark  hair  is  thrown  back 
from  the  forehead,  and  falls  heavily  over  a  fine  mus- 
cular throat.  The  hands  are  nearly  as  expressive  as 
the  face,  clenching  the  sword  with  eloquent  gesture. 
In  handling,  this  picture  resembles  the  Magdalen, 
painted  in  1877,  the  colour  lying  thick  and  slightly 
stringy  on  the  canvas  as  if  oil  had  been  freely  used  as 
a  medium.  "  Neither  in  expression,  colour,  nor  de- 
sign did  I  ever  do  a  better  thing,"  Rossetti  wrote  of 
it,  and  it  is  undeniably  more  vigorous  and  bold  and 
inspiriting  than  many  of  the  works  that  show  more 
intimately  his  personal  attitude  toward  life.  Nor  did 
he,  in  this  instance,  sacrifice  to  the  ascetic  sentiment 
of  the  subject  his  colour  preferences,  now  growing  so 
intense.  The  blue  steel  cuff  gleaming  sharply  on 
the  right  arm  is  the  only  note  of  colour  that  does  not 
suggest  the  opulence  of  luxurious  surroundings  in  a 
time  of  peace. 


1 72  Gbe  IRossettte. 

Another  picture  that  was  in  a  sense  an  experiment, 
although  typifying  Rossetti's  tendency  during  his 
later  years  to  alternate  pretty  and  meaningless  faces 
with  those  oppressed  with  psychological  significance, 
is  the  Venus  Verticordia  of  1864,  in  which  the  head 
and  the  undraped  shoulders  of  a  tall,  handsome  wo- 
man rise  above  a  grove  of  honeysuckle  and  against 
a  background  of  roses.  The  original  is  in  oil  and  a 
small  replica  was  done  in  water-colour.  In  this 
composition  Rossetti  said  he  could  not  introduce 
drapery  of  any  kind  without  entirely  killing  his  idea, 
and  it  is  the  only  known  case  in  which  he  used  the 
nude  model  in  a  painting. 

This  picture  was  the  rock  on  which  Ruskin's 
friendship  with  Rossetti  finally  went  to  pieces, 
although  as  late  as  1870,  according  to  Mr.  Marillier, 
the  two  were  in  amicable  correspondence.  Ruskin 
"frankly  detested"  the  picture,  Mr.  Marillier  says, 
and  Mr.  William  Rossetti  quotes  pregnant  extracts 
from  his  letters  to  Rossetti  anent  the  bone  of  conten- 
tion. "You  are,  it  seems,  under  the  (for  the  present) 
fatal  mistake  of  thinking  that  you  will  ever  learn  to 
paint  well  by  painting  badly,  /.  e.,  coarsely.  But 
come  back  to  me  when  you  have  found  out  your 
mistake,  or  (if  you  are  right  in  your  method)  when 
you  can  do  better.  I  purposely  used  the  word 
'  wonderfully  '  painted  about  those  flowers.  They 
were  wonderful  to  me,  in  their  realism,  awful  — 
I  can  use  no  other  word — in  their  coarseness.  Come 
and  see  me  now  if  you  like."  And  at  last :  "  I  am 


Joan  of  Arc. 

From  the  painting  in  possession  of  Mr.  S.  T.  Peters,  New  York. 


painting  from  1862  to  1870.          173 

very  grateful  to  you  for  this  letter,  and  for  the  feeling 
it  expresses  towards  me.  You  meant  them  —  the 
first  and  second— j ust  as  rightly  as  this  pretty  third  ; 
and  yet  they  conclusively  showed  me  that  we,  could 
not  at  present  —  nor  for  sometime  yet  —  be  com- 
panions any  more,  though  true  friends,  I  hope,  as 
ever.  I  do  not  choose  any  more  to  talk  to  you  until 
you  can  recognise  my  superiorities  as  /  can  yours. 
You  simply  cannot  see  certain  characters  in  me.  A 
day  may  come  when  you  will  be  able  :  then — with- 
out apology,  without  restraint,  merely  as  being  differ- 
ent from  what  you  are  now  —  come  back  to  me  and 
we  will  be  as  we  used  to  be." 

The  "  wonderful  "  and  "  awful  "  flowers  were  un- 
dertaken by  Rossetti  in  a  sufficiently  careful  spirit  to 
have  brought  about  good  results.  He  writes  to  his 
mother  of  being  tied  down  to  his  canvas  until  all  the 
flower  part  of  it  is  finished.  "  I  have  done  many 
more  roses,"  he  says,  "and  have  established  an  ar- 
rangement with  a  nursery  gardener  at  Cheshunt, 
whereby  they  reach  me  every  two  days  at  2s.  6d.  for 
a  couple  of  dozen  each  time,  which  is  better  than 
paying  a  shilling  apiece  at  Covent  Garden.  Also 
honeysuckles  I  have  succeeded  in  getting  at  the 
Crystal  Palace,  and  have  painted  a  lot  already  in  my 
foreground,  and  hope  for  more.  All  these  achieve- 
ments were  made  only  with  infinite  labour  on  my 
part,  and  the  loss  of  nearly  a  whole  week  in  search- 
ing." And  again :  "  I  have  been  so  busy  that  I  have 
not  been  anywhere  except  where  my  picture  took 


174 

me  to  look  for  flowers.  I  got  three  different  parcels 
of  honeysuckles  from  three  different  friends  in  three 
different  parts  of  England,  none  of  which  were  of 
any  use,  being  broken  and  faded.  Then  I  got  some 
from  a  nursery  at  Waltham  Cross  which  were  not 
much  good  either,  and  lastly  from  the  Crystal  Palace. 
All  with  much  delay  and  bother.  So  you  see  I  have 
had  a  time  of  it." 

However  desultory  in  his  methods  of  work  Ros- 
setti  had  been  in  his  youth,  by  the  time  he  was 
thirty-five  he  had  formed  strict  habits  of  industry. 
In  a  letter  of  1865,  ne  mentions  that  "during  the 
five  months  ending  with  the  close  of  October "  there 
had  been  only  twelve  days  which  he  had  not  spent 
at  his  easel. 

The  record  in  Mr.  Marillier's  book  of  work  accom- 
plished between  1862  and  1870  includes  more  than 
sixty  oil-  and  water-colours,  besides  numerous  car- 
toons and  crayon  studies,  the  last  amounting  in  many 
cases  to  important  pictures,  owing  to  Rossetti's 
unique  method  of  treating  this  flexible  medium.  In 
1864  he  wrote  to  his  aunt,  with  whom  he  kept  up  a 
faithful  friendship:  "I  trust  shortly  to  begin  a  very 
large  work  on  commission,  and  henceforward  to  do 
almost  exclusively  large  works  in  oil.  Small  things 
and  water-colours  I  should  never  have  done  at  all,  ex- 
cept for  the  long  continuance  of  a  necessity  for  '  pot- 
boilers." To  this  resolution  he  held  in  the  main, 
most  of  the  water-colours  done  after  that  date  being 
replicas  of  earlier  pictures,  a  form  of  "pot-boiling" 


painting  from  1862  to  1870.          175 

in  which  he  indulged  to  a  considerable  extent. 
"Certain  qualities  of  oil-painting  he  mastered  with 
entire  success,"  Mr.  Colvin  says,  in  speaking  of 
this  transition.  "  Depth  of  tone  and  chiaroscuro  he 
did  not  as  yet  seek,  but  he  attacked  and  vanquished 
the  most  daring  problems  of  colour  in  equal  and  dif- 
fused light.  For  the  combination  of  keen  and  flash- 
ing intensity  with  mystery  and  delightfulness  of 
quality,  his  painting  of  tissues  and  jewels  and  flowers 
at  this  period  stands,  it  is  no  extravagance  to  say, 
alone  in  art."  A  later  critic,  however,  writing  of  the 
exhibition  at  the  New  Gallery  in  1898,  of  some  of 
Rossetti's  pictures,  considered  the  charm  of  the  col- 
lection to  lie  in  the  fact  that  it  was  composed  chiefly 
of  early  work  and  water-colours.  "  Rossetti  devel- 
oped a  water-colour  technique  peculiar  to  himself," 
he  says,  "which  was  strong  and  vigorous,  a  tech- 
nique which  he  wielded  with  power.  Never  has 
this  medium  been  made  to  yield  more  intense  or 
richer  colour ;  and  although  the  iridescent  washes 
which  Turner  used  with  such  magical  effects  are  left 
on  one  side,  nevertheless  the  results  Rossetti  wished 
to  attain  are  reached  with  complete  success.  It  was 
different  when  he  used  oil-colour ;  the  painter  and 
the  paint  appear  at  variance  ;  the  artist  seems  to  be 
trying  to  compel  his  colours  to  work  in  a  way  foreign 
to  their  nature.  Beautiful  chromatic  effects  were 
often  arrived  at,  no  doubt,  but  generally  in  spite  of 
the  paint." 

In  whatever  way  he  could  best  reach  it,  colour 


1 76  £be  IRossettis. 

was  at  all  events  the  preoccupation  of  Rossetti's 
mind  when  he  was  considering  the  problems  of  his 
art.  To  make  his  canvases  rich  garden-plots  of 
living  and  glowing  hues,  this  seemed  to  be  his  great 
idea.  He  cared  little  for  light  and  shade,  he  was 
apparently  blind  to  atmospheric  effects ;  with  much 
feeling  for  the  pattern  of  his  composition,  and  for  the 
general  direction  of  lines  he  seems  to  have  been 
indifferent  to  the  sensitive  outline  of  the  human 
figure  and  almost  devoid  of  the  architectonic  faculty. 
Planes  and  values  were  not  often  in  his  thoughts,  we 
may  fancy,  but  his  enthusiasm  for  colour  grew  and 
ripened  almost  to  decay. 

As  early  as  1854  he  wrote  to  Mr.  MacCracken 
(the  dealer  who  bought  the  Ecce  Ancilla  Domini): 

"I  believe  colour  to  be  a  quite  indispensable 
quality  in  the  highest  art,  and  that  no  picture  ever 
belonged  to  the  highest  order  without  it ;  while 
many,  by  possessing  it — as  the  works  of  Titian — are 
raised  certainly  into  the  highest  class,  though  not 
to  the  very  highest  grade  of  that  class,  in  spite  of 
the  limited  degree  of  their  other  great  qualities. 

"  Perhaps  the  only  exception  which  I  should  be 
inclined  to  admit  exists  in  the  works  of  Hogarth,  to 
which  I  should  never  dare  to  assign  any  but  the 
very  highest  place,  though  their  colour  is  certainly 
not  a  prominent  feature  in  them.  I  must  add,  how- 
ever, that  Hogarth's  colour  is  seldom  other  than 
pleasing  to  myself,  and  that  for  my  part  I  should 
almost  call  him  a  colourist,  though  not  aiming  at 


painting  from  1862  to  1870.          177 

colour.  Colour  is  the  physiognomy  of  a  picture  ; 
and,  like  the  shape  of  the  human  forehead,  it  cannot 
be  perfectly  beautiful  without  proving  goodness  and 
greatness.  Other  qualities  are  its  life  exercised  ;  but 
this  is  the  body  of  its  life,  by  which  we  know  and 
love  it  at  first  sight."  This  creed,  announced  when 
Rossetti  was  twenty-six,  might  have  been  repeated 
with  redoubled  emphasis  when  he  was  thirty-six  or 
at  any  subsequent  time  of  his  life. 

Despite  the  fact  that  Rossetti  in  these  later  years 
preferred  to  concentrate  his  power  upon  the  half- 
length  figures  which,  after  all,  were  best  suited  to 
his  technical  capacity,  it  must  not  be  assumed  that 
the  abundant  and  dramatic  schemes  for  pictures  in 
which  he  took  so  much  delight  in  his  youth  ceased 
suddenly  to  interest  him.  The  contrary  is  proven 
by  the  recurrence  from  time  to  time  of  such  designs 
as  Mary  Magdalene  at  the  Door  of  Simon,  and  the 
famous  Dante's  Dream.  The  Return  of  Tibullus  to 
Delia  was  carried  out  during  his  middle  years,  and 
an  entirely  new  design  for  a  Salutation  of  Beatrice 
was  begun  in  1880.  These,  however,  were  develop- 
ments from  suggestions  of  the  earlier  time.  As  his 
hand  grew  more  methodical  his  brain  grew  a  little 
less  eager,  though  retaining  its  capability.  More- 
over, as  his  brother  has  pointed  out,  he  was  depend- 
ent upon  a  very  limited  circle  of  buyers  and  was 
constrained  to  consult  their  taste  as  well  as  his  own 
in  the  pictures  he  painted  for  them,  and  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  offers  the  additional  explanation  that  he 


Gbe  IRossettis. 

wanted  more  time  for  poetry.  In  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Hall  Caine  he  himself  charges  many  of  his  defici- 
ences  to  sloth.  That,  he  says,  is  one  of  his  reasons, 
though  not  the  only  one,  for  falling  back  on  quality 
rather  than  quantity  in  his  work,  and  he  is  tempted 
to  think  with  Coleridge  : 

Sloth  jaundiced  all :  and  from  my  graspless  hand 
Drop  friendship's  precious  pearls  like  hour-glass  sand. 
I  weep,  yet  stoop  not:  the  faint  anguish  flows, 
A  dreamy  pang  in  morning's  feverish  doze. 

Remembering,  however,  the  conditions  of  tem- 
perament and  health  under  which  Rossetti  worked, 
and  the  great  physical  strain  involved  in  working 
upon  subjects  complicated  by  many  figures  and 
problems,  one  can  hardly  refrain  from  extending  to 
him  the  consideration  shown  by  himself  in  revising 
his  sonnet  on  Coleridge.  The  revised  passage  reads: 

Yet  ah  !  like  desert  pools  that  shew  the  stars 

Once  in  long  leagues — even  such  the  scarce-snatched  hours 

Which  deepening  pain  left  to  his  lordliest  powers. 

Mr.  Caine  doubted  if  " deepening  pain"  could  be 
charged  with  the  whole  burden  of  Coleridge's  con- 
stitutional procrastination,  and  Rossetti  responded 
with  characteristic  impetuosity : 

"  Line  eleven  in  my  first  reading  was  'deepening 
sloth,'  but  it  seemed  harsh — and — damn  it  all !  too 
much  like  the  spirit  of  Banquo  ! " 

It  was  his  repugnance  to  exhibit  his  pictures  that 
confined  him  to  the  small  number  of  dealers  and 
buyers  by  whom  he  and  his  work  were  known,  but 


painting  from  1862  to  1870.          179 

the  repugnance  could  never  be  overcome.  Even 
when  the  Grosvenor  Gallery  was  started  in  1877  and 
he  was  asked  to  send  his  pictures  to  the  annual 
exhibitions  through  which  Burne-Jones  gained  his 
large  public,  he  declined,  with  the  idea  that  he  was 
doing  so  because  pictures  that  failed  to  satisfy  him 
in  his  studio  were  not  for  exhibition  rooms.  He 
had  in  mind  a  collection  of  his  best  work  selected 
by  himself  some  day  to  represent  him  before  the 
world,  but  this  plan  was  never  carried  out,  and  not 
until  after  his  death,  when  the  walls  of  both  the 
Royal  Academy  and  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club 
suddenly  glowed  with  the  rich  product  of  his  genius, 
did  the  public  fairly  see  him. 

He  has  left  so  little  expression  of  his  personal 
opinions  about  painting  (has  written  so  few  precept- 
tlve  words  on  his  particular  craft),  that  any  indica- 
tions of  his  convictions  or  theories  regarding  it  are 
precious,  and  one  source  of  such  enlightenment  is 
found  in  a  little  enterprise  quite  out  of  his  ordinary 
line,  undertaken  immediately  after  his  wife's  death, 
which  sent  him  back  to  his  old  haunts  in  the  British 
Museum  to  burrow  again  among  Blake's  designs. 
His  aid  had  been  sought  in  1860  by  Alexander  Gil- 
christ,  then  about  to  commence  a  Life  of  Blake. 
The  little  volume  of  Blake  manuscript  picked  up  in 
the  Museum  by  the  young  Rossetti  so  many  years 
before  was  useful  in  providing  fresh  material,  and 
the  Life  was  nearly  complete  when  Gilchrist  died 
suddenly  in  1861.  His  widow  tried  to  carry  on  the 


i8o  Gbe  1Ro0setti0. 

work  and  Rossetti  helped  her  with  the  ungrudging 
cordiality  and  enthusiasm  well  known  to  his  friends 
when  in  trouble.  Besides  criticisms  on  Blake's 
poems  and  pictures,  he  wrote  a  supplementary 
chapter  for  the  Life,  from  which  may  be  extracted 
a  passage  of  much  interest  in  the  light  it  throws  on 
his  own  attitude  toward  the  combined  use  of  nature 
and  imagination  in  art.  Blake  held  that  nature 
should  be  learned  by  heart  and  remembered  by  the 
painter  as  the  poet  remembers  language.  ' '  Models, " 
said  he,  ''are  difficult  —  enslave  one  —  efface  from 
one's  mind  a  conception  or  reminiscence  which  was 
better."  "The  truth  on  this  point  is,"  Rossetti  com- 
ments, "that  no  imaginative  artist  can  fully  express 
his  own  tone  of  mind  without  sometimes  in  his  life 
working  untrammelled  by  present  reference  to  na- 
ture ;  and,  indeed,  that  the  first  conception  of  every 
serious  work  must  be  wrought  into  something  like 
complete  form,  as  a  preparatory  design,  without 
such  aid,  before  having  recourse  to  it  in  the  carrying 
out  of  the  work.  But  it  is  equally  or  still  more  im- 
perative that  immediate  study  of  nature  should  per- 
vade the  whole  completed  work.  Tenderness,  the 
constant  unison  of  wonder  and  familiarity  so  mys- 
teriously allied  in  nature,  the  sense  of  fulness  and 
abundance  such  as  we  feel  in  a  field,  not  because  we 
pry  into  it  all,  but  because  it  is  all  there  ;  these  are 
the  inestimable  prizes  to  be  secured  only  by  such 
study  in  the  painter's  every  picture.  And  all  this 
Blake,  as  thoroughly  as  any  painter,  was  gifted  to 


painting  from  1862  to  1870.          181 

have  attained,  as  we  may  see  especially  in  his  works 
of  that  smallest  size  where  memory  and  genius  may 
really  almost  stand  in  lieu  of  immediate  consultation 
of  nature.  But  the  larger  his  works  are,  the  further 
he  departs  from  this  lovely  impression  of  natural 
truth  ;  and  when  we  read  the  above  maxim,  we 
know  why." 

Although  Rossetti  had  been  called  affected,  man- 
nered, and  not  even  desirous  to  attain  natural  effects, 
he  himself  was  late  in  departing  from  the  use  of  the 
model  in  his  work.  He  was  forty-nine  years  old 
before  we  find  him  writing  in  a  tone  of  deprecation 
to  his  brother : 

"  I  rather  project  painting  a  picture  without  refer- 
ence to  Nature  from  some  one  of  the  careful  draw- 
ings which  hang  in  the  drawing-room.  This,  I  have 
always  thought,  would  be  perfectly  feasible  ;  and 
just  at  present  I  should  find  the  use  of  models 
somewhat  onerous,  as  it  interferes  with  resting 
when  one  feels  tired."  There  is  no  further  reference 
to  anything  of  the  kind,  and  presently  he  writes  of 
painting  from  Mrs.  Stillman  for  five  hours  on  the 
stretch,  and  in  another  instance  congratulates  him- 
self that  the  season  is  backward  so  that  he  can  still 
get  the  young  sycamore  buds  to  pose  for  him  ! 
Obviously  the  old  Pre-Raphaelite  habit  of  seeking 
truth  clung  like  a  garment,  draping  his  own  imagina- 
tions. Painting  from  nature  is,  however,  a  very 
different  thing  from  imitating  nature,  and  the  latter 
is  what  Rossetti  —  for  better  or  for  worse  — was  not 


1 82  Gbe  1Ro00ett!0. 

equal  to.  His  pictures  of  people  seem  always  to 
have  been  likenesses,  yet  never,  perhaps,  the  kind 
of  likeness  known  as  "faithful."  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  true  to  the  spirit  of  his  sitter  as  well 
as  to  his  own  highly  wrought  imagination.  In 
Beata  Beatrix  and  Proserpine  we  know  that  we 
have  penetrated  the  envelope  of  flesh  and  found  the 
personality  shielded  by  it.  But  in  Found  and  other 
pictures  painted  from  "  Fanny  Cornforth  "  we  can 
see  plainly,  by  comparing  them  with  a  little  photo- 
graph of  the  model  once  taken  in  Rossetti's  garden, 
how  uncompromisingly  he  has  refrained  from  intro- 
ducing more  spirituality  than  those  comely  features 
revealed  to  him,  and  how  carefully  he  has  studied 
their  forms.  In  the  painting  of  flesh,  as  has  been 
pointed  out  by  one  of  his  critics,  he  seemed  not  to 
care  for  reproducing  the  texture,  and  he  used  the 
expressive  features, —  the  eyes  and  the  mouth, —  as 
symbols  of  the  soul  and  body.  "  As  the  sense  of 
mystery  grew  upon  him,"  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  says, 
"the  corporeal  part  of  man  seemed  more  and  more 
to  be  but  a  symbol  of  the  spiritual  ;  and  more  and 
more  did  he  try  to  render  it  so."  He  tried  indeed 
to  make  painting  as  fully  as  possible  a  language  in 
which  feeling  and  thought  should  be  told  as  ade- 
quately as  in  words.  While  he  was  prone  to  help 
out  his  pictures  with  his  sonnets  he  none  the  less 
strove  mightily  to  impose  upon  the  pictures  them- 
selves the  burden  of  his  message.  This  became  in 
the  latter  part  of  his  life  a  morbid  tendency,  but  in  its 


painting  from  1862  to  1870.          183 

modified  manifestations  it  constitutes  his  claim  to 
being  not  only  the  most  personal  painter  of  his  time, 
but  the  most  attractive  to  those  in  sympathy  with  his 
attitude  toward  his  material. 

Of  inanimate  nature,  the  world  of  outdoors,  we 
see  little  enough  in  his  work.  Just  at  the  end  of  the 
period  we  have  been  discussing  he  took  an  old  can- 
vas on  which  he  had  in  1850  painted  a  landscape,  and 
added  to  it  a  composition  of  four  figures,  two  playing 
on  instruments  and  two  dancing  in  the  middle  dis- 
tance, and  while  he  was  at  Kelmscott  he  painted  the 
picture  called  Water  Willow,  in  which  the  pale  face 
and  dusky  hair  of  Mrs.  Morris  are  seen  against  a  back- 
ground showing  the  old  manor-house  and  the  wind- 
ing river  with  its  green,  sloping  banks.  With  the 
setting  of  the  figures  in  Found  he  struggled  for  nearly 
thirty  years,  and  finally  Burne-Jones  washed  in  the 
sky  and  brought  the  various  details  together  after  a 
fashion.  This  seems  to  be  the  extent  to  which  land- 
scape entered  into  his  painting.  A  number  of  his 
acquaintances  have  recorded  his  great  indifference  to 
the  actual  world  even  under  its  most  beautiful  as- 
pects. Apparently  it  did  not  stir  him  to  any  marked 
degree,  yet  it  cannot  truly  be  said  to  have  made  no 
impression  upon  him.  In  his  poetry,  if  not  in  his 
painting,  we  come  upon  descriptions  as  accurate  as 
any  by  Tennyson  or  Wordsworth,  and  imbued  with 
psychological  suggestion  such  as  Coleridge  might 
have  given  them. 

In  one  of  his  letters  from  Hastings  during  the  sum- 


1 84  Gbe  IRossettis. 

mer  of  1 856,  is  a  passage  difficult  to  surpass  in  its  rend- 
ering of  an  emotional  phase  of  natural  scenery,  and  the 
description  was  later  repeated  in  the  poem  Even  So. 

" There  are  dense  fogs  of  heat  here  now,"  he 
wrote  in  the  letter,  "through  which  sea  and  sky 
loom  as  one  wall  with  the  webbed  craft  creeping  on 
it  like  flies,  or  standing  there  as  if  they  would  drop 
off  dead.  I  wandered  over  the  baked  cliffs,  seeking 
rest  and  finding  none." 

And  here  is  the  verse  from  the  poem,  not  quite 
so  poetic  as  the  prose  : 

But  the  sea  stands  spread 
As  one  wall  with  the  flat  skies, 
Where  the  lean  black  craft  like  flies 

Seem  well-nigh  stagnated, 

Soon  to  drop  off  dead. 

Some  of  his  appreciations  of  Blake's  hand-col- 
oured prints  in  the  Life  just  now  referred  to  also  re- 
veal a  sympathy  both  sensitive  and  deep  with  effects 
of  light  and  air  and  the  colour  of  the  fair  natural 
world.  He  speaks  of  "  the  almost  miraculous  expres- 
sion of  the  glow  of  freedom  and  of  air  in  closing  sun- 
set" in  a  plate  where  "a  youth  and  maiden,  lightly 
embraced,  are  racing  along  a  saddened  low-lit  hill 
against  an  open  sky  of  blazing  and  changing  won- 
der"; of  "a  soft-complexioned  sky  of  fleeting  rose 
and  tingling  grey  such  as  only  dawn  and  dreams 
can  show  us  "  ;  of  "  the  momentary  sense  of  spring 
in  winter  sunshine,  the  long  sunsets  long  ago,  and 
falling  fires  on  many  distant  hills." 


ipatntina  from  1862  to  1870.          185 

At  Kelmscott,  too,  he  wrote  two  or  three  ex- 
quisite poems  "  from  nature  "  as  he  said,  one  of  them 
Sunset  Wings,  in  which  is  recorded  the  habit  of 
the  starlings  there  to  sink  "  ere  they  rest  with  day." 

Clamorous  like  mill-waters  at  wild  play 
By  turns  in  every  copse. 

Not  in  any  respect  a  devotee  of  Nature  he  cannot 
fairly  be  called  insensitive  to  her  moods  when  they 
chanced  within  the  range  of  his  introspective  vision. 
Perhaps  his  comment  on  Wordsworth  will  best  sug- 
gest his  own  very  different  attitude  :  "He  thought 
Wordsworth  was  too  much  the  High  Priest  of  Nature 
to  be  her  lover,"  Mr.  Caine  reports,  "too  much  con- 
cerned to  transfigure  into  poetry  his  pantheo-Christ- 
ian  philosophy  regarding  Nature,  to  drop  to  his  knees 
in  simple  love  of  her  to  thank  God  that  she  was 
beautiful." 


CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  CLOSING  YEARS. 

THE  two  years  spent  by  Rossetti  at  Kelmscott 
seem  to  have  been  passed  under  conditions 
most  favourable  to  him.  From  the  tone  of 
his  family  letters  one  would  conjecture  a  man  busy 
with  affairs  that  interested  him  and  finding  a  natural 
relaxation  in  simple  amusements.  He  was  painting 
from  Mrs.  Morris  and  from  Miss  Wilding  with  much 
satisfaction  in  the  results,  considering  the  Prosperine 
and  the  Ghirlandata  each  in  turn  "  about  the  best 
thing  "  he  had  done.  He  produced  little  poetry,  but 
his  cordial  review  of  Dr.  Hake's  Parables  and  Poems 
was  written  at  this  time,  and  a  new  edition  of  the 
Italian  translations  was  brought  out  under  the  title, 
Dante  and  His  Circle.  He  had  also  an  idea  of  trans- 
lating and  editing  the  poems  of  Michelangelo  and  sent 
for  a  number  of  books  to  aid  him  in  the  task.  "  My 
own  impression,"  he  said,  "is  that  Michelangelo 
stands  about  alone  as  a  good  Italian  poet  after  Dante 
etc.,  unless  we  except  Poliziano."  This  scheme 
came  to  nothing,  but  shows  that  his  interest  in  liter- 

186 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti. 

By  G.  F.  Watts. 
By  permission  of  Mr.  Frederick  Holtyer. 


Closing  J)ears.  187 

ary  enterprises  was  not  quenched  by  the  criticism 
that  so  seriously  had  affected  his  mind  and  spirits. 

The  idea  of  a  trip. to  Italy  also  tempted  him  at 
last,  and  this,  too,  came  to  nothing.  The  spring 
before  his  return  to  London  his  brother  was  married, 
and  we  find  him  demurring  at  joining  in  the  wedding 
festivities.  "  I  am  most  loath,  even  to  great  regret, 
to  be  away  from  the  party  on  the  eve  of  your  wed- 
ding ;  but  the  fact  is  that,  at  such  a  gathering  as 
you  indicate,  every  bore  I  know  and  don't  know 
would  swoop  down  on  me  after  these  two  years' 
absence,  and  I  am  not  equal  to  it,  now  that  solitude 
is  the  habit  of  my  life." 

This  sentence  is  the  only  hint  that  reaches  us 
through  his  letters  of  the  sad  drama  going  on  be- 
neath the  apparently  commonplace  surface  of  a  daily 
existence  marked  by  records  of  frolics  with  children 
and  dogs,  of  the  blooming  of  flowers  in  their  sea- 
sons, of  books  read  and  friends  affectionately  re- 
membered, and  of  long  walks  over  the  country 
about  Kelmscott. 

Solitude,  however,  had  indeed  become  the  habit 
of  Rossetti's  inner  even  more  than  of  his  outer  life. 
He  was  living  more  and  more  in  a  world  of  illusions, 
isolating  him  from  those  nearest  him  and  dogging 
the  wholesome  natural  thoughts  that  never  entirely 
forsook  him,  with  sleuth-hound  persistence.  Morris 
thought  him  from  the  first  "  unromantically  discon- 
tented" with  Kelmscott,  and  "in  all  sorts  of  ways 
unsympathetic  with  the  sweet,  simple  old  place," 


1 88  £be  1Ro00ett!0. 

and  was  glad  when  he  was  out  of  it.  But  the  con- 
dition into  which  he  was  lapsing  might  better  have 
provoked  pity  than  irritation.  Like  Coleridge  he 
was  constantly  in  the  presence  of 

a  lurid  light,  a  trampling  throng, 
Sense  of  intolerable  wrong, 

but,  unlike  Coleridge,  he  kept  his  sufferings  out  of 
his  writing,  and  his  intimates  only  knew  them.  On 
one  of  his  walks  beside  the  river  in  the  company  of 
young  Hake,  he  encountered  a  party  of  anglers. 
His  imagination  took  sudden  fire,  and  he  fancied 
them  insulting  him  and  calling  out  to  him  in  offens- 
ive language.  Incensed  beyond  control,  he  ran  up 
to  them  and  lustily  abused  them  to  their  not  unnat- 
ural astonishment.  The  story  was  promptly  circul- 
ated through  the  little  hamlet  "of  117  people,"  and 
Rossetti  left  Kelmscott  never  to  go  back  to  it. 

His  departure  from  the  house  which  he  had 
shared  with  Morris  was  closely  followed  by  the  dis- 
solution of  the  firm  of  Morris,  Marshall,  Faulkner 
&  Co.  The  business  had  been  built  up  chiefly  by 
the  energy  and  talent  of  Morris,  who  also  had  con- 
tributed most  of  the  capital.  According  to  the  terms 
of  the  partnership,  however,  each  of  the  other  part- 
ners, who  had  contributed  but  a  trifling  sum  towards 
capital,  and  who  had  been  paid  at  the  time  for  any 
assistance  they  gave,  was  entitled  to  an  equal  share 
of  the  value  of  the  business.  This  legal  right 
Burne-Jones,  Faulkner,  and  Webb  refused  to  accept. 


Closing  HJears.  189 

Madox  Brown  was  not  willing  to  forego  it  and  was 
finally  bought  out.  Rossetti,  according  to  his 
brother's  account,  "  retired  from  the  firm  without 
desiring  any  compensation  for  his  own  benefit,"  and 
set  aside  the  portion  assigned  him  "  for  the  eventual 
advantage  of  a  member  of  the  Morris  family,"  but — 
characteristically — trenched  upon  it  before  his  death. 
Mr.  Mackail  in  his  Life  of  Morris  declares  that  the 
transaction  "snapped  the  chain  of  attachment  be- 
tween Morris  and  Rossetti  which  had  for  other 
reasons  long  been  wearing  thin,"  and  adds  that  from 
this  time  forward  Morris  was  no  longer  to  be  seen  in 
Rossetti 's  house  at  Cheyne  Walk,  as  "the  estrange- 
ment between  the  two  powerful  and  self-centred 
personalities  was  final."  Obviously  Rossetti's  atti- 
tude did  not  convince  Morris  of  his  disinterested- 
ness, but  greed  is  not  a  fault  easy  to  reconcile  with 
his  qualities,  and  if  this  occasion  appeared  to  bring 
it  out,  it  is  entirely  conceivable  that  he  was  influ- 
enced more  by  a  sense  of  loyalty  to  Madox  Brown, 
who  was  his  oldest  friend,  than  by  any  desire  to 
turn  the  labours  of  others  to  his  own  profit.  At 
about  this  time  he  was  offering  a  predella  picture  to 
Mr.  Graham  at  a  reduced  price,  stipulating  that  the 
difference  should  be  spent  in  buying  pictures  from  a 
friend  in  difficulties,  and  the  constant  indication  of 
such  impulses  makes  it  impossible  to  think  of  him  as 
sordidly  inclined,  although  it  is  possible  to  imagine 
in  him  a  streak  of  obstinate  hardness  that  would 
resist  opposition  to  the  last  instant  of  recorded  time. 


190  £be  IRossettis. 

After  his  return  to  Cheyne  Walk  he  led  a  life  of 
comparative  seclusion,  going  out  chiefly  at  night  and 
making  few  visits  among  his  friends.  Mr.  George 
Hake  continued  for  a  time  to  live  with  him,  and  also 
his  assistant,  Mr.  Treffry  Dunn.  A  number  of  the 
friends  who  came  most  frequently  to  the  house  be- 
longed to  a  generation  later  than  his  own,  although 
certain  ones  of  the  older  circle  were  constant  in  at- 
tendance. His  industry  was  not  yet  lessened  by  his 
waning  vitality.  Mrs.  Darmesteter  is  authority  for 
the  story  of  his  having  made  quite  early  in  his  career 
a  resolution  to  do  something,  be  it  little  or  great,  in 
the  way  of  work  each  day  of  his  life.  To  the  spirit 
of  this  resolution,  she  says,  he  remained  true  through 
sorrow,  illness,  and  dire  despondency,  and  she  tells 
a  pretty  anecdote  in  illustration  of  his  persistence. 
One  day,  returning  from  a  forlorn  walk,  unfit  for 
work  and  depressed  by  idleness,  he  turned  mechan- 
ically the  leaves  of  a  book  on  plants  and  opened  it  at 
a  page  on  which  was  an  illustration  of  the  wood- 
spurge.  Racking  his  brain  for  an  idea  with  which  to 
save  the  day  from  utter  worthlessness  as  a  working 
period,  he  could  think  of  nothing  but  the  meaningless 
little  flower  beneath  his  eye.  The  outcome  was  a 
vivid  poem,  the  last  two  verses  of  which  are  these : 

My  eyes,  wide  open,  had  the  run 

Of  some  ten  weeds  to  fix  upon  ; 
Among  those  few,  out  of  the  sun, 

The  wood-spurge  flowered,  three  cups  in  one. 

From  perfect  grief  there  need  not  be 
Wisdom  or  even  memory  : 


Gbe  Closing  Jjjears.  191 

One  thing  then  learnt  remains  to  me, 
The  wood-spurge  has  a  cup  of  three. 

Whatever  his  method  of  discipline,  he  managed 
to  keep  his  hand  busy,  and  if  the  old  desultory  in- 
consequence still  abode  with  him,  his  biographers 
have  not  enlightened  us,  and  his  work  does  not  be- 
tray him.  A  couple  of  years  before  his  death  he  told 
Mr.  Caine  that  although  in  early  life  his  painting  had 
tormented  him  more  than  enough,  it  now  took  little 
out  -of  him.  "  I  paint,"  he  said,  "  by  a  set  of  un- 
written but  clearly  defined  rules,  which  I  could  teach 
to  a  man  as  systematically  as  you  could  teach  arith- 
metic." Beyond  the  fundamental  conception,  to 
which  he  always  gave  its  importance,  he  declared 
there  was  little  in  a  picture  that  could  not  thus  be 
done  by  rule.  "  In  painting,  after  all,  there  is  in  the 
less  important  details  something  of  the  craft  of  a 
superior  carpenter,  and  the  part  of  a  picture  that  is 
not  mechanical  is  often  trivial  enough." 

Making  due  allowance  for  his  tendency  to  bluff 
aside  any  reference  to  his  art  that  savoured  of  mag- 
niloquence, this  comment  shows  him  in  very  com- 
plete possession  of  his  instrument  for  the  limited 
uses  to  which  he  chose  to  put  it. 

Of  his  poetry,  however,  he  spoke  in  a  different 
tone,  and  perhaps  with  some  conscious  exaggera- 
tion, when  he  described  himself  as  the  reverse  of 
a  poet  like  Swinburne,  for  whose  method  of  pro- 
duction ''inspiration  is  indeed  the  word.  With 
me  the  case  is  different.  I  lie  on  the  couch,  the 


192  Gbe  IRossettte. 

racked  and  tortured  medium,  never  permitted  an  in- 
stant's surcease  of  agony  until  the  thing  on  hand  is 
finished." 

His  painting  toward  the  end  of  his  life  brought 
him  large  prices,  owing  less  to  his  own  efforts,  per- 
haps, than  to  those  of  a  certain  Mr.  Howell  who  was 
his  agent  during  his  Kelmscott  exile  and  for  some 
years  after.  In  1876  he  himself  regarded  the  three 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds 
which  he  had  made  during  the  preceding  year  as 
representing  his  average  income.  The  picture  called 
Venus  Astarte,  finished  early  in  1877,  had  brought 
the  large  sum  of  two  thousand  one  hundred  pounds, 
and  the  Proserpine  precisely  half  that  amount.  To 
some  enthusiasts  the  pictures  of  this  late  time  are 
the  true  Rossetti  pictures,  but  most  of  his  critics 
agree  in  finding  even  in  the  lovely  Fiammetta,  gra- 
cious and  young  against  her  apple-blossom  back- 
ground, traces  of  deterioration.  It  was  not,  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  insists,  that  Rossetti  could  not  now 
have  equalled  the  best  work  of  his  sturdiest  years, 
had  he  wished  to  do  so,  but  that  in  his  chase  of 
symbol  to  the  very  doorway  of  the  dead,  he  chose 
to  relinquish  much  of  his  more  comprehensible 
method.  "  Down  to  the  very  last  his  faculties  re- 
mained unimpaired,"  says  this  loyal  friend,  "and  he 
could  have  painted  flesh  as  brilliantly  as  he  painted 
it  in  The  Beloved  and  Monna  Vanna;  but  by  a 
method  of  his  own  (laying  in  his  heads  in  genuine 
ultramarine  and  white),  he  hoped  to  give,  and  did 


Closing  years.  193 

give,  in  his  after  -  painting  that  mysterious  and 
dreamy  suggestiveness  to  the  flesh  which  his  mys- 
terious conceptions  required."  The  Venus  Astarte 
was  one  of  the  paintings  in  which  especially  this 
tendency  held  sway  over  the  ordinary  elements  of 
the  artistic  medium.  The  idea  of  the  Syrian  Venus 
worshipped  in  Carthage  may  possibly  have  been 
suggested  to  Rossetti  by  Flaubert's  Carthaginian 
novel,  Salammbo,  which  he  was  reading  during  the 
first  months  of  his  stay  at  Kelmscott,  and  which 
seemed  to  him  "the  work  of  a  nation  from  which 
mercy  had  been  cast  out."  Whether  this  was  the 
case  or  whether,  as  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  intimates,  the 
idea  came  from  one  of  Rossetti's  friends  who  saw 
in  a  study  of  Mrs.  Morris's  head  the  attributes  of  an 
Oriental  Venus,  he  could  not  constrain  his  imaginat- 
ive sympathy  with  the  type,  and  made  his  painting 
so  sombre,  powerful,  and  mystical  that  the  British 
mind  has  constantly  been  perplexed  and  irritated 
by  it. 

In  the  same  year  with  the  commencement  of  the 
Venus  Astarte,  the  commonplace  and  elaborate  de- 
sign for  The  Sphinx  (never  to  be  carried  out  in 
colour)  was  made,  and  is  only  interesting  from  the 
fact  that  it  was  suggested  by  the  death  of  Madox 
Brown's  boy  Oliver,  who  died  at  twenty,  denied  the 
fulfilment  of  exceptional  promise.  The  sonnet  on 
his  death  is  a  direct  expression  of  Rossetti's  attitude 
toward  the  question  of  immortality,  an  expression 
of  complete  and  frank  agnosticism  : 


194  £be  IRoseettis. 

A  mist  has  risen  :  we  see  the  youth  no  more  : 
Does  he  see  on  and  strive  on  ?    And  may  we 
Late-tottering  world-worn  hence,  find  his  to  be 

The  young  strong  hand  which  helps  us  up  that  shore  ? 

Or,  echoing  the  No  More  with  Nevermore, 

Must  Night  be  ours  and  his  ?    We  hope  :  and  he  ? 

Much  of  Rossetti's  work  after  1872  consisted  of 
replicas.  The  Beata  Beatrix  was  four  times  re- 
peated, once  in  water-colour  and  three  times  in  oil. 
The  Blessed  Damo^el,  inspired  by  the  early  poem, 
was  painted  in  1876  and  repeated  with  modifications  J 
two  years  later.  The  Proserpine  met  with  a  variety 
of  accidents,  and  five  or  six  versions  exist,  the  latest 
one  having  been  completed  the  very  year  of  Ros- 
setti's death.  To  that  last  year  also  belongs  a  replica 
of  the  Joan  of  Arc.  His  largest  but  not  his  greatest 
picture,  the  Dante's  Dream,  now  hanging  in  the 
Walker  Art  Gallery  at  Liverpool,  was  begun  in  1870 
and  painted  again  on  a  smaller  scale  in  1880.  This 
picture  is  a  striking  example  of  Rossetti's  occasional 
perversity  in  dealing  with  buyers.  Mr.  Graham  had 
commissioned  it  at  the  price  of  fifteen  hundred  and 
seventy-five  pounds,  suggesting  that  the  size  should 
be  six  feet  by  three  and  a  half.  Rossetti,  however, 
had  in  mind  to  do  a  magnum  opus  and  started  in  on 
a  canvas  of  nearly  twice  the  size.  The  result  was 
that  it  could  be  hung  nowhere  in  Mr.  Graham's 
house  unless  on  the  stairway.  This  ignominious 
position  did  not  suit  Rossetti,  and  he  reclaimed  it, 
to  replace  it  with  the  smaller  version.  The  original 
became  a  white  elephant  on  his  hands,  and  when  it 


Fiammetta. 

Painted  from  Mrs.  Stillman. 


• 

' 


ZTbe  Closing  H)ear0.  195 

was  finally  disposed  of  he  had  been  paid  for  it  three 
times  over,  twice  getting  it  back  in  exchange  for  its 
equivalent  in  smaller  work. 

Among  the  pictures  of  1877  was  the -Magdalen, 
now  owned  by  Mr.  Bancroft,  in  which  the  most 
winning  qualities  of  Rossetti's  final  style  are  dis- 
played. Like  the  Lady  Lilith  it  is  painted  from  Miss 
Wilding,  but  there  is  no  occult  suggestion  in  the 
sweet  almost  childish  face,  with  its  tender,  full  lips, 
not  firmly  enough  modelled  for  beauty,  its  innocent, 
meditative  eyes,  its  smooth  young  oval,  its  surround- 
ing glory  of  bright  hair.  It  has  been  painted  obvi- 
ously with  a  slow  vehicle,  and  one  might  almost 
surmise  with  a  slow  hand.  There  is  no  vivacity  of 
touch  or  freshness  of  colour.  The  effect  is  even  a 
little  turbid,  but  the  richness  and  unity  of  the  tone 
and  the  loveliness  of  the  type  are  compensations  to 
silence  all  fault-finding.  Unfortunately  the  repro- 
duction in  this  book  fails,  owing  to  the  ridgy  quality 
of  the  paint,  to  give  the  peculiar  gracious  beauty  of 
the  hands  as  they  are  rendered  in  the  original. 

In  this  year  1877  we  find  Rossetti  again  away 
from  Chelsea,  and  in  a  very  low  condition  of  health. 
Since  his  return  from  Kelmscott  he  had  twice  left 
town,  once  at  the  end  of  1875  for  a  stay  of  several 
months  at  Bognor,  where  he  rented  a  place  called 
Aldwick  Lodge  near  "the  roughest  bit  of  beach  on 
the  Sussex  coast"  ;  and  again  in  the  summer  of  1876 
for  a  visit  at  Broadlands,  Hampshire,  the  home  of 
Lord  and  Lady  Mount-Temple,  where  he  met  a  Mrs. 


196  £be  IRoesettie. 

Sumner  who  became  an  attached  friend,  and  who 
sat,  the  tallest  and  stateliest  of  his  various  tall  and 
stately  types,  for  his  unfinished  picture,  the  Domi^ia 
Scaligera. 

The  next  summer  he  was  ill  from  an  organic  dis- 
turbance to  which  he  was  subject  and  which  rend- 
ered an  operation  necessary.  From  the  nervous 
strain  thus  laid  upon  him  he  was  slow  in  reviving, 
due  in  part  to  the  subjugation  of  his  system  to 
chloral  of  which  he  continued  to  take  heavy  doses. 
In  August  he  went  with  Madox  Brown  and  a  hired 
nurse  to  Herne  Bay  for  the  very  essential  change  of 
air  and  scene.  Brown  gives  an  amusing  account  of 
their  difficulties  in  finding  suitable  lodgings,  and  it 
may  well  be  imagined  that  Rossetti  was  not  a  very 
pliable  tenant. 

"Our  first  landlady,"  Brown  writes,  "proved  a 
vixen  and  we  had  to  decamp,  sacrificing  a  week's 
rent.  But  there  was  no  help  for  it,  for  the  house 
was  small  and  her  tongue  resounded  all  over  it. 
She  was  indignant  at  our  having  baths.  She  was 
indignant  at  our  late  dinners.  She  was  indignant  at 
our  wish  to  shut  in  the  sound  of  her  children's 
voices.  She  was  most  of  all  indignant  at  eggs  being 
poached  and  macaroni  eaten.  We  found  this  pretty 
house  and  left.  D.  G.  is  really  better  since,  and 
walks  and  talks  of  painting  again."  "This  pretty 
house  "  was  a  little  removed  from  Herne  Bay  proper, 
at  Hunter's  Forestall,  and  here  Rossetti  was  joined  by 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  by  his  mother  and  Christina. 


Mary  Magdalen  with  the  Alabaster  Box. 

Photographed  from  original  painting,  hitherto  unphotographed,  br 
courtesy  of  the  owner,  Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft.  Jr 


' 
sat,  the 

:ture,  the  / 


ilc  dis- 
'nd- 
at 
d  upon 

very  essential 
\  *fltf  Wfc;- 

-v<v&«itoM  J*Wtat)^:v^d^gfikA^ 

->e  iiT^§ifH^^h^R^s5^tti>^^^     very 
^Ie  tenant. 

"Our  first  landlady,/'  Brown  writes,  "prov 
•i  and  we  had  to  decamp,  sacrificing  a  we 
there  was  no  help  for  it,  for 
and  her  tongtu 
.;nant  a 

-hut   in 
left.  and 

* 

md  Christ 


Gbe  Closing  J?ear0.  197 

His  talk  of  painting  again  led  to  no  result  for  some 
time,  and  his  improvement  in  health  was  much 
retarded  by  the  extreme  depression  of  his  spirits. 
"The  absolute  lack  of  occupation  is  rotting  my  life 
away,  hour  by  hour,"  he  had  written  home,  shortly 
after  his  arrival.  His  companions  vied  with  one 
another  to  lift  his  melancholy  and  spur  him  toward 
his  old  pursuits,  and  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  given  a 
detailed  account  of  the  way  in  which  the  latter  was 
finally  accomplished.  Rossetti,  he  says,  was  un- 
doubtedly very  weak,  "but  not  nearly  so  weak  as 
his  vivid  imagination  declared  him  to  be.  He  was 
convinced  that  he  would  never  be  able  to  paint 
again,  and  consequently,  the  moment  he  touched 
the  brush,  his  hand  shook  as  with  the  palsy,  and  the 
brush  fell  from  his  fingers.  Many  an  anxious  con- 
ference we  had  as  to  the  best  means  of  grappling 
with  this  all-powerful  imagination.  An  accident  dis- 
closed the  lines  on  which  we  could  work.  We  got 
talking  about  W.  B.  Scott  and  his  absolute  baldness, 
which  extended  not  only  to  the  head,  but  to  the 
eyebrows  and  the  eyelashes — the  result,  I  believe,  of 
some  aggravated  form  of  dyspepsia.  Rossetti  said 
that  he  had  seen  him  without  his  wig,  and  tried  to 
describe  the  phenomenon.  I  said,  '  Sketch  Scotus's 
bald  pate  for  us.'  He  went  to  the  easel  and  made 
the  sketch  rapidly  and  perfectly.  Of  course  we  made 
no  comment  upon  the  fact  of  his  powers  of  work 
being  suddenly  restored.  But  the  next  day  Christina 
was  seized  by  a  burning  desire  to  have  her  mother's 


198  £be  IRossettis. 

portrait  drawn  in  chalk.  Simultaneously  Mrs.  Ros- 
setti  was  seized  by  a  burning  desire  to  possess  a 
portrait  of  Christina  in  chalk.  When  Rossetti  de- 
clared that  he  could  not  even  hold  a  piece  of  chalk, 
Scotus's  bald  pate  was  pointed  to.  The  result  of  the 
little  plot  was  a  very  successful  chalk  portrait-group, 
life-size,  of  Christina  and  her  mother,  head  and 
shoulders."  This  was  followed  by  other  portraits  of 
Christina,  and  Rossetti's  emancipation  from  the  im- 
aginative part  of  his  weakness  was  complete.  The 
rule  of  Rossetti's  imagination  over  his  physical  sens- 
ations has  elsewhere  been  emphasised  by  this  same 
friend,  whose  opportunities  for  observing  it  were 
unrivalled.  Some  of  his  remarks  have  therefore  a 
value  above  those  of  any  other  writer  about  Ros- 
setti and  may  well  be  quoted  literally  to  convey  the 
precise  impression  produced  upon  him.  Rossetti,  he 
says,  "was  the  slave  of  his  own  imagination — an 
imagination  of  a  power  and  vividness  such  as  I  have 
never  seen  equalled.  Of  its  vividness,  no  artistic 
expression  of  his  can  give  any  notion.  He  had  not 
the  smallest  command  over  it.  And  let  it  not  be 
supposed  that  this  was  a  slight  affliction :  nor  let 
anyone  think  less  of  Rossetti  because,  having  lost 
the  governance  of  the  most  powerful  of  all  the 
human  faculties,  he  suffered  much  misery.  .  .  . 
It  is  asserted  that  a  drop  of  cold  water  will  scald,  if 
the  person  upon  whose  flesh  it  falls  really  imagines 
it  to  be  boiling.  And  I  believe  it :  I  feel  certain  that 
Rossetti  could  have  been  so  scalded.  Like  fire  the 


Closing  UJears.  199 

imagination  is  a  good  servant  but  a  bad  master. 
This  I  say  was  Rossetti's  curse,  that  like  Professor 
Tyndall's  'sensitive  flame,' which  rises  and  falls  to 
the  tiny  sounds  of  a  tuning-fork  or  the  rustle  of  a 
dress,  or  the  plashing  of  a  rain-drop,  the  tremulous 
flame  of  his  soul  was  disturbed  by  every  breath. 

"To  tell  him  anything  of  a  specially  pathetic  or 
tragic  nature  was  cruel,  so  vividly  did  he  realise 
every  situation.  A  friend  of  his  used  to  amuse  him, 
when  strolling  by  the  Thames  at  Kelmscott,  by  tell- 
ing him  anecdotes  and  stories  gathered  from  out-of- 
the-way  books,  or  else  invented  for  the  occasion. 
So  powerful  (that  is  to  say,  so  childlike)  was  Ros- 
setti's imagination,  so  entirely  did  it  dominate  an 
intellect  of  unusual  subtlety,  that  these  stories  in- 
terested him  just  as  much  as  real  adventures,  and, 
though  he  knew  them  to  be  gossamer  fictions  woven 
at  the  moment  of  telling,  he  would  be  as  much 
affected  by  an  unhappy  catastrophe  as  though  they 
had  been  incidents  of  real  life,  and  would  sometimes 
beg  for  the  catastrophe  to  be  altered.  He  was  an 
idealist,  I  say,  if  ever  there  was  one ;  he  paid  the 
penalty  for  living  in  the  idealist's  world  of  beautiful 
dreams,  if  ever  that  penalty  was  paid  by  man." 

It  is  by  mere  chance  that  we  know  more  of  Ros- 
setti  the  thinker  during  the  last  few  years  of  his  life 
than  at  any  other  stage  of  his  development.  In  1878 
Mr.  Hall  Caine  sent  him  the  copy  of  a  lecture  on  his 
poetry  delivered  the  year  before,  and  thus  began  a 
correspondence  in  which  many  of  his  opinions  upon 


200  £be  IRoesettte. 


literature,  especially  upon  poetry,  find  expression, 
his  readiness  to  aid  a  much  younger  writer  leading 
him  to  discussion  of  technical  points  in  addition  to 
ordinary  statement  of  literary  sympathies.  He  obvi- 
ously was  not  a  critic  in  any  extended  sense,  Mr. 
Caine  observes,  but  "  you  might  always  distrust  your 
judgment,"  he  adds,  "if  you  found  it  at  variance 
with  his  where  abstract  power  and  beauty  were  con- 
cerned." On  Wordsworth,  whose  faults  were  of  the 
kind  to  impress  him  deeply,  he  utters  one  or  two 
sagacious  judgments.  "No  one  regards  the  great 
Ode,"  he  says,  "with  more  special  and  unique 
homage  than  I  do,  as  a  thing  absolutely  'alone  of  its 
kind  among  all  greatest  things."  But  he  could  not 
say  that  anything  else  by  Wordsworth  seemed  on  a 
level  with  it.  "A  reticence  almost  invariably  present 
is  fatal  in  my  eyes  to  the  highest  pretensions  on 
behalf  of  his  sonnets,  "  he  adds  elsewhere.  '  '  Reticence 
is  but  a  poor  sort  of  muse,  nor  is  tentativeness  (so 
often  to  be  traced  in  his  work)  a  good  accompani- 
ment in  music.  Take  the  sonnet  on  Toussaint  L'Ou- 
verture  (in  my  opinion  his  noblest,  and  very  noble 
indeed)  and  study  (from  Main's  note)  the  lame  and 
fumbling  changes  made  in  various  editions  of  the 
early  lines  which  remain  lame  in  the  end.  .  .  . 
Primary  vital  impulse  was  surely  not  fully  devel- 
oped in  his  muse."  Primary  vital  impulse  was  with 
Rossetti  the  first  essential  of  poetry.  "You  have 
much  too  great  a  habit  of  speaking  of  a  special  oc- 
tave, sestette,  or  line,"  he  warns  his  correspondent, 


Closing  Jflears.  201 

"Conception,  my  boy,  Fundamental  Brain  work, 
that  is  what  makes  the  difference  in  all  art.  Work 
your  metal  as  much  as  you  like,  but  first  take  care 
that  it  is  gold  and  worth  working.  A  Shakespearian 
sonnet  is  better  than  the  most  perfect  in  form,  be- 
cause Shakespeare  wrote  it." 

Despite  his  care. for  form  in  his  own  work  he  had 
no  sympathy  whatever  with  formality.  "  It  would 
not  be  at  all  found,"  he  says,  "that  my  best  son- 
nets are  always  in  the  mere  form  which  I  think  the 
best.  The  question  with  me  is  regulated  by  what  I 
have  to  say." 

He  prided  himself  on  keeping  his  verse  up  to  his 
own  standard  :  "  If  I  have  a  distinction  as  a  sonnet 
writer  it  is  that  I  never  admit  a  sonnet  that  is  not 
fully  on  the  level  of  every  other."  For  indiscrimi- 
nate publishing  he  had  a  vast  contempt.  Of  Keats 
he  says  that  he  hardly  died  so  much  too  early,  and 
not  at  all  too  early  had  there  been  any  danger  of  his 
"taking  to  the  modern  habit  eventually  —  treating 
material  as  product  and  shooting  it  all  out  as  it 
comes  "  ;  but  he  would  not  have  thought  a  longer 
career  thrown  away  upon  him  if  he  had  continued 
to  the  age  of  anything  to  give  joy.  "  Nor  would  he 
ever  have  done  any  'good'  at  all,"  he  adds,  with 
relish.  "  Shelley  did  good,  and  perhaps  some  harm 
with  it.  Keats'  joy  was  after  all  a  flawless  gift." 

In  his  praise  of  Coleridge,  he  was  naturally  en- 
thusiastic, in  a  sense  recognising  his  "master." 
"You  can  never  say  too  much  about  Coleridge  for 


202  £be  IRossettis. 


me,"  he  wrote,  "for  I  worship  him  on  the  right  side 
of  idolatry,"  but  the  worship  was  confined  to  the 
poetry  :  the  philosophy  was  an  unread  book  to  him. 
"  I  doubt,"  says  Mr.  Caine,  "  if  Rossetti  quite  knew 
what  was  meant  by  '  Coleridge's  system  '  as  it  was 
so  frequently  called,  and  I  know  that  he  could  not 
be  induced  to  so  much  as  look  at  the  Biographia 
Literaria,  though  once  he  listened  whilst  I  read  a 
chapter  from  it." 

He  was  a  great  denouncer  of  the  prose  style  in 
poetry,  a  sentiment  probably  at  the  source  of  his 
antagonism  to  Wordsworth,  but  he  had  no  patience 
with  unusual  or  curious  words,  and  firmly  took  his 
correspondent  to  task  for  using  them. 

"  I  am  sure,"  he  says,  "  I  could  write  one  hun- 
dred essays,  on  all  possible  subjects,  without  once 
experiencing  the  'aching  void'  which  is  filled  by 
such  words  as  '  mythopoeic  '  and  '  anthropomor- 
phism.' I  do  not  find  life  long  enough  to  know  in 
the  least  what  they  mean.  They  are  both  very 
long  and  very  ugly  indeed,  the  latter  only  suggest- 
ing to  me  a  Vampire  or  Somnambulant  Cannibal. 
(To  speak  rationally,  would  not  '  man-evolved  God- 
head '  be  an  English  equivalent?)1  'eheumeristic  '  also 
found  me  somewhat  on  my  beam-ends  though  ex- 
planation is  here  given  ;  yet  I  felt  I  could  do  with- 
out 'eheumerous'  and  you  perhaps  without  the 
'numerous.'  You  can  pardon  me  now  ;  for  so  bad 

1  An  excellent  proof  of  the  truth  of  his  declaration  that  he  "  does  not  know  in  tha 
least  "  what  the  word  means. 


Closing  U?ear0.  203 

a  pun  places  me  at  your  mercy  indeed.  But  seri- 
ously, simple  English  in  prose  writing  and  in  all 
narrative  poetry  (however  monumental  language 
may  become  in  abstract  verse)  seems  to  me  a  treas- 
ure not  to  be  foregone  in  favour  of  German  innova- 
tions." 

For  Chatterton  he  had  a  late-blossoming  enthusi- 
asm. He  owned  his  works  in  1848,  but  it  was  thirty 
years  after  that  he  began  to  make  a  special  study  of 
him,  and  then  he  wrote  :  "Not  to  know  Chatterton 
is  to  be  ignorant  of  the  true  dayspring  of  romantic 
poetry."  Someone  said  that  Oliver  Madox  Brown 
had  "genius  enough  to  stock  a  good  few  Chatter- 
tons,"  which  drew  from  him  a  scornful  tirade  against 
comparing  the  genius  of  one  age  and  environment 
with  the  genius  of  another.  Oliver,  he  said,  was 
the  product  of  the  most  teeming  hotbeds  of  art  and 
literature.  "  What  he  would  have  been  if,  like  the 
ardent  and  heroic  Chatterton,  he  had  had  to  fight 
a  single-handed  battle  for  art  and  bread  together 
against  merciless  mediocrity  in  high  places  —  what 
he  would  then  have  become,  I  cannot  in  the  least 
calculate,  but  we  know  what  Chatterton  became." 

In  politics,  as  by  this  time  we  have  seen,  Rossetti 
was  no  champion.  He  says  that  he  never  read  a 
parliamentary  debate  in  his  life.  Early  in  his  youth 
he  wrote  an  indignant  little  sonnet,  On  the  Refusal 
of  Aid  between  Nations,  in  reference  to  the  apathy 
with  which  other  countries  regarded  the  struggles  of 
Italy  and  Hungary  against  Austria ;  and  occasional 


204  £be  IRossettte. 

sonnets  written  later,  together  with  a  few  which  he 
said  he  had  written  but  had  not  printed,  and  which 
"would  not  prove  him  a  Tory,"  show  him  tempor- 
arily stirred  by  phases  of  public  life  ;  but  he  had 
no  real  sympathy  with  political  questions  as  such. 
"  He  had  ideas,"  his  brother  says,  "and  applied 
them  to  national  as  well  as  other  problems  ;  but  he 
paid  no  attention  at  all  to  the  hourly  and  yearly 
scuffle  over  questions  of  practical  legislation  and  ad- 
ministration, whether  in  this  country  or  in  others." 

"You  must  simply  view  me  as  a  nonentity  in 
any  practical  relation  to  such  matters,"  he  replied, 
when  Mr.  Caine  asked  permission  to  dedicate  to 
him  his  essay  on  the  relation  of  politics  to  art.  In 
the  essay  it  was  urged  that  as  great  artists  in  the 
past  had  participated  in  political  struggles,  they 
should  not  now  hold  aloof  from  controversies  im- 
mediately concerning  them.  This  was  not  at  all 
Rossetti's  idea.  He  pointed  out  that  even  Michel- 
angelo, patriot  and  hero  as  he  was,  "when  he  had 
done  all  that  he  thought  became  him,  retired  to  a 
certain  trackless  and  forgotten  tower  and  there 
stayed  in  some  sort  of  peace  (though  much  in 
request)  till  he  could  lead  his  own  life  again,"  and 
on  one  occasion  did  not  hesitate  to  betake  himself 
to  Venice  as  a  refuge.  To  paint  in  a  trackless  and 
forgotten  tower  would  have  been  much  to  Rossetti's 
taste,  but  he  repudiated  sharply  enough  the  idea 
advanced  by  Mr.  Caine  in  his  essay  that  to  certain 
minds  the  preservation  of  such  a  pitiful  possession 


The  Loving  Cup. 

Crayon. 


Closing  H?ears.  205 

as  the  poetical  remains  of  Cecco  Angiolieri  seemed 
more  important  than  to  secure  the  unity  of  a  great 
nation.  He  could  not  conceive  such  an  individual 
and  thought  the  passage  would  be  much  better 
modified  to  ''a  thing  of  some  moment  even  while 
the  contest  is  waging  for  the  political  unity  of  a 
great  nation." 

In  this  correspondence  Rossetti's  own  poetry  was 
frequently  discussed  and  with  a  zest  almost  boyish 
in  its  expression.  The  references  to  his  emendations 
are  full  of  interest  in  their  suggestion  of  the  hold 
taken  upon  him  by  his  poems,  and  the  importance 
he  attached  to  each  alteration.  "The  next  point  I 
have  marked  in  your  letter,"  he  writes  on  one  impres- 
sive occasion,  "  is  that  about  the  additions  to  Sister 
Helen.  Of  course  I  knew  that  your  hair  must  arise 
from  your  scalp  in  protest.  But  what  should  you 
say  if  Keith  of  Ewern  were  a  three-days'  bridegroom 

—  if  the  spell  had  begun  on  the  wedding-morning 

—  and  if  the  bride  herself  became  the  last  pleader 
for  mercy  ?    I  fancy  you  will  see  your  way  now. 
The  culminating,  irresistible    provocation    helps,   I 
think,  to  humanise  Helen,  besides  lifting  the  tragedy 
to  a  yet  sterner  height. " 

It  was  quite  a  habit  with  him,  after  explaining 
such  changes  in  his  work  or  showing  any  new  poem 
to  his  friends,  to  warn  them  against  letting  the  pub- 
lic get  wind  of  the  matter.  He  wanted  everything 
he  printed  to  strike  fresh  upon  his  readers,  and  for 
this  reason  seldom  let  any  of  his  poems  go  to  peri- 


206  Gbe  iRossettis. 

odicals  ;    keeping  them  almost  as  jealously  as  he 
kept  his  pictures. 

His  intimacy  with  Mr.  Caine  and  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  was  undoubtedly  the  influence  that  spurred 
him  on  to  new  efforts  in  poetry  during  the  last  three 
or  four  years  of  his  life.  The  latter  was  untiring  in 
his  zeal  to  rescue  Rossetti's  great  gifts  from  the  ob- 
scurity that  threatened  him.  When  he  laid  down 
his  pen,  as  when  he  laid  down  his  brush,  this  most 
untiring  of  friends  stimulated,  cajoled,  and  finally 
coerced  him  until  the  brain  resumed  its  natural  func- 
tion and  the  imagination  began  to  play  about  safer 
themes  than  his  personal  experiences  and  sufferings. 
Thus  after  a  long  lapse  and  at  a  time  when  gloomy 
forebodings  were  uppermost  in  his  mind  he  was  per- 
suaded with  infinite  difficulty  to  try  his  hand  at  a 
sonnet.  The  outcome  was  of  no  value,  but  truth 
was  sacrificed  to  policy,  and  his  companion  lavished 
praise  upon  it  until  more  sonnets  were  written  and 
the  old  dexterity  was  regained.  Again,  he  was 
challenged  to  write  a  ballad  in  the  simple,  direct 
style  of  the  ballad  proper,  and  The  White  Ship  and 
The  King's  Tragedy  resulted.  The  former,  written 
in  1 880,  is  the  dramatic  story  of  the  death  at  sea  of 
Henry  the  First's  son  and  shows  no  sign  of  diminish- 
ing vigour.  Berold  the  butcher,  the  one  survivor  of 
the  wreck,  tells  the  story,  and  the  language  is  sturdy 
and  lucid  enough.  The  character  of  the  young 
Prince  is  concisely  indicated  and  its  one  redeeming 
trait  of  heroism  is  finely  conceived  and  rendered  : 


Closing  Jflears.  207 

He  was  a  prince  of  lust  and  pride  ; 

He  showed  no  grace  till  the  hour  he  died. 

When  he  should  be  King,  he  oft  would  vow, 
He  'd  yoke  the  peasant  to  his  own  plow. 
O'er  him  the  ships  score  their  furrows  now. 

God  only  knows  where  his  soul  did  wake, 
But  I  saw  him  die  for  his  sister's  sake. 

In  constructing  this  ballad  Rossetti  showed  all  his 
customary  care  in  perfecting  details  :  every  point 
in  his  treatment  of  the  subject,  he  said,  even  down 
to  the  incident  of  "the  fair  boy  dressed  in  black" 
who  announced  to  the  King  the  news  of  his  son's 
death,  was  derived  from  the  ancient  chroniclers.  He 
sent  his  manuscript  to  Madox  Brown  for  criticism 
and  received  some  nautical  hints  which  he  needed, 
"  being  one  of  those  men  to  whom  such  words  as 
sea,  ship,  and  boat  are  generic  terms." 

The  King's  Tragedy,  completed  just  a  year  be- 
fore his  death,  is  founded  upon  the  tradition  that 
Catherine  Douglas  received  her  popular  name  "Bar- 
lass  "  from  having  barred  the  door  with  her  arm 
against  the  murderers  of  James  the  First  of  Scots. 
It  begins  with  the  free  ballad  swing,  and  reaches 
the  romantic  height,  though  lacking  the  flexible 
spontaneity  of  the  best  of  the  old  ballad  literature. 
Mr.  Watts-Dunton  finds  those  portions  of  it  the 
finest  which  deal  with  the  supernatural,  but  they  are 
closely  pressed  by  the  dramatic  passage  describing 
the  finding  of  the  King,  and  by  the  splendid  stanzas 
picturing  the  Scottish  sea  under  the  rising  moon  : 


208  Ebe  iRossettis. 


That  eve  was  clenched  for  a  boding  storm, 

'Neath  a  toilsome  moon  half  seen  ; 
The  cloud  stooped  low  and  the  surf  rose  high  ; 
And  where  there  was  a  line  of  the  sky 

Wild  wings  loomed  dark  between. 

T  was  then  the  moon  sailed  clear  of  the  rack 

On  high  in  her  hollow  dome  ; 
And  still  as  aloft  with  heavy  crest 

Each  clamorous  wave  rang  home, 
Like  fire  in  snow  the  moonlight  blazed 

Amid  the  champing  foam. 

With  these  two  ballads  and  a  third  (Rose  Mary, 
written  immediately  after  the  publication  of  his  first 
volume)  and  a  number  of  new  sonnets,  Rossetti  de- 
cided that  he  had  enough  material  for  another  vol- 
ume. This  he  got  out  in  1881  under  the  name 
Ballads  and  Sonnets,  transferring  to  it  the  now  com- 
pleted House  of  Life.  At  the  same  time  he  reissued 
the  Poems,  filling  up  the  gap  left  by  the  removal  of 
The  House  of  Life  chiefly  by  inserting  the  early  and 
unfinished  poem,  The  Bride's  Prelude. 

In  two  months'  time  he  had  realised  from  the 
royalty  on  these  two  volumes  over  thirteen  hundred 
dollars,  and  they  were  favourably  received  by  the 
critics,  but  the  fire  of  life  was  sinking  very  fast  in 
Rossetti,  and  he  was  almost  indifferent  now  to  the 
fate  of  his  work.  To  use  his  brother's  words  :  "Not 
for  the  applause  of  a  big  or  a  little  crowd  had  he 
worked  all  his  life  long,  rather  for  adequate  self- 
expression  and  attainment  in  art.  The  work  was 
done,  but  —  except  in  a  remote  or  abstracted  sense 


Gbe  Closing  l?ears.  209 

—  it  did  not  prove  to  be  its  own  exceeding  great 
reward." 

His  mind  turned  to  new  projects,  however,  among 
them  an  historical  ballad  on  Joan  of  Arc  (also  the 
subject  of  the  last  picture  on  which  he  painted),  for 
which  he  had  transcripts  and  abstracts  made  from 
documents  in  the  British  Museum  ;  and  a  ballad  on 
The  Death  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  which  he  in- 
tended to  include  a  tribute  to  John  Brown.  These 
were  not  carried  out,  and  the  last  poetry  he  actually 
produced  was,  characteristically  enough,  a  ballad  con- 
ceived many  years  before,  embodying  an  eccentric 
story  of  a  Dutchman's  wager  to  smoke  against  the 
devil,  and  two  sonnets  dictated  from  his  death-bed 
on  his  own  design  The  Sphinx. 

He  had  grown  gradually  weaker  in  body  and  more 
and  more  variable  in  mood,  and  those  who  knew  him 
only  during  these  later  years  remember  periods  of 
terrible  depression  against  which  he  would  struggle 
manfully,  and  spasms  of  morbid  suspicion  in  which 
his  oldest  and  truest  friends  were  charged  with  grave 
disloyalty  to  him.  His  native  resolution  had  waned 
in  small  matters  so  much  that  Mr.  Caine,  becoming 
his  housemate  in  1881,  found  him  devoid  of  it,  and 
also  ''destitute  of  cheerfulness  and  content."  He 
was  doubtless  an  unmanageable  companion,  filled  as 
he  was  with  imaginings,  and  nervous  at  times  to  the 
point  of  frenzy,  but  his  outbursts  had  always  their 
corresponding  reactions  in  which  he  was  pathetically 
eager  to  atone.  "  I  wish  you  were  indeed  my  son," 


210  ZTbe  IRossettis. 

he  said  to  Mr.  Caine  on  one  of  these  occasions,  "  for 
though  then  I  should  still  have  no  right  to  address 
you  so,  I  should  at  least  have  some  right  to  expect 
your  forgiveness."  He  kept  to  the  end  his  capacity 
to  attach  people  to  him  with  extraordinary  intensity 
of  affection.  The  young  blind  poet,  Philip  Bourke 
Marston,  who  knew  and  loved  him  in  the  decline  of 
his  life,  expressed  this  in  the  language  of  youthful 
romanticism  when  he  wrote  to  a  young  friend : 
"  What  a  supreme  man  is  Rossetti !  Why  is  he  not 
some  great  exiled  king,  that  we  might  give  our  lives 
in  trying  to  restore  him  to  his  kingdom  !  " 

He  was  something  very  like  an  exiled  king  during 
the  four  years  that  he  shut  himself  within  the  walls 
of  his  Chelsea  garden,  or  held  his  limited  court  in  the 
studio,  and  more  than  one  of  his  friends  gave  a  liberal 
share  of  life  in  the  vain  effort  to  restore  him  to  his 
kingdom.  But  he  could  still  be  royal  company  at 
times,  and  show  in  his  gracious  manner  and  quick 
sympathy  that  he  was  the  Rossetti  of  his  most  pro- 
pitious period.  Mr.  Sharp  tells  us  of  evenings  spent 
with  him  that  began  in  the  depths  of  fathomless  de- 
spair, by  dinnertime  reached  shallower  seas  of  de- 
spondency, and  between  the  hours  of  ten  and  three 
rose  to  a  high  tide  of  cheerfulness.  Then,  he  says, 
"  many  a  jest  and  hearty  laugh,  keen  criticism  and 
pungent  remark,  recondite  reminiscence  and  poetic 
quotation,  would  make  the  lurking  blue  devils  depart 
altogether  from  the  studio  —  to  await  their  victim 
when,  in  the  sleepless  morning-hours,  he  should  be 


Sketch  of  Ruth  Herbert. 

An  experiment  in  method.      The  high  lights  are  the 
bare  paper  ;  the  colour  is  gold  ponder  mixed  on 
the  palette  in  gum  ;  the  shadows  accentu- 
ated in  umber ;  the  lips  slightly 
reddened ;   the  eyes  blue.' 

Photographed  from  the  original,  which  has  not  before  been  repro- 
duced, by  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr. 


Closing  Jljears.  211 

alone  once  more  with  his  sufferings  and  unquiet 
thoughts." 

His  relations  with  his  family,  always  affectionate, 
grew  closer  than  ever  as  his  need  deepened.  "  It 
makes  life  less  bleak  as  it  advances,"  he  writes  to 
Christina,  "to find  the  old  care  and  love  still  prompt 
to  hand."  With  his  mother  he  was  uniformly  tender 
and  considerate.  However  he  might  confide  his 
misery  to  his  intimates,  and  reticence  was  not  his 
quality,  to  her  he  presented  a  brave  face  and  a  loving 
one.  In  the  society  of  his  friends  he  took  pleasure, 
dreading  nothing  so  much  as  loneliness  ;  but  meeting 
with  strangers  was  an  ordeal  that  more  and  more 
grew  impossible  to  him.  Even  after  his  long  corre- 
spondence with  Mr.  Caine  and  repeated  invitations 
to  him  to  visit  Cheyne  Walk,  the  first  suggestion 
toward  carrying  out  such  a  plan  brought  about  the 
utmost  agitation.  Mr.  Caine  describes  the  prelimin- 
aries in  the  following  words  : 

"  By  return  of  the  post  that  bore  him  my  mis- 
sive came  two  letters,  the  one  obviously  written  and 
posted  within  an  hour  or  two  of  the  other.  In  the  first 
of  these  he  expressed  courteously  his  pleasure  at  the 
prospect  of  seeing  me,  and  appointed  8.30  P.M.  the 
following  evening  as  his  dinner'hour  at  his  house  in 
Cheyne  Walk.  The  second  letter  begged  me  to 
come  at  5.30  or  6  P.M.,  so  that  we  might  have  a  long 
evening.  '  You  will,  I  repeat,'  he  says,  'recognise  the 
hole-and-cornerest  of  all  existences  in  this  big  barn 
of  mine  ;  but  come  early  and  I  shall  read  you  some 


212  £be  IRossettte. 


ballads  and  we  can  talk  of  many  things.'  An  hour 
later  than  the  arrival  of  these  letters  came  a  third 
epistle,  which  ran  :  '  Of  course  when  I  speak  of  your 
dining  with  me,  1  mean  tete-a-tete  and  without  cere- 
mony of  any  kind.  I  usually  dine  in  my  studio  and 
in  my  painting  coat  !  '  I  had  before  me  a  five-hours' 
journey  to  London,  so  that  in  order  to  reach  Chelsea 
at  6  P.M.  I  must  needs  set  out  at  midday,  but  oblivious 
of  this  necessity,  Rossetti  had  actually  posted  a  fourth 
letter  on  the  morning  of  the  day  on  which  we  were 
to  meet,  begging  me  not  on  any  account  to  talk,  in 
the  course  of  our  interview,  of  a  certain  personal 
matter  upon  which  we  had  corresponded.  This 
fourth  and  final  message  came  to  hand  the  morning 
after  the  meeting,  when  I  had  the  satisfaction  to  re- 
flect that  (owing  more  perhaps  to  the  plethora  of 
other  subjects  of  interest  than  to  any  suspicion  of  its 
being  tabooed)  I  had  luckily  eschewed  the  proscribed 
topic." 

On  the  occasion  of  this  first  meeting  Mr.  Caine 
saw  a  man  who  looked  to  him  ten  years  older  than 
his  actual  age,  which  was  then  fifty-two,  with  a  pale 
face  and  heavy  moustache  and  beard  streaked  with 
grey.  He  wore  spectacles,  and,  in  reading,  a  second 
pair  over  the  first,  "  but  these  took  little  from  the^ 
sense  of  power  conveyed  by  those  steady  eyes  and 
that  'bar  of  Michelangelo."  He  was  negligently 
dressed,  and  wore  a  straight  sack  coat  of  his  own 
designing,  "buttoned  at  the  throat,  descending  at 
least  to  the  knees,  and  having  large  pockets  cut  into 


Gbe  Closing  Ij)ear0.  213 

it  perpendicularly  at  the  sides. "  The  black,  tumbling 
hair  had  grown  thin,  and  the  forehead  showed  the 
plainer  its  nobility  of  structure.  His  voice  had  lost 
nothing  of  its  richness  and  compass  and  "had  every 
gradation  of  tone  at  command  "  for  the  readings  and 
recitations  which  now  as  in  his  youth  gave  him  the 
keenest  enjoyment.  This  is  the  last  glimpse  we  get 
of  Rossetti  before  his  appearance  changed  to  that  of 
an  invalid  for  whom  there  is  no  recovery. 

In  September,  1881,  shortly  after  Mr.  Caine  took 
up  his  residence  with  Rossetti,  the  two  went  together 
to  the  Vale  of  St.  John  in  the  mountains  of  Cumber- 
land, where  they  stayed  a  month.  It  was  the  last 
trip  from  which  Rossetti  was  to  return,  and  as  he 
re-entered  his  Cheyne  Walk  house,  much  feebler 
than  when  he  left  it,  he  uttered  the  words  :  "Thank 
God  !  home  at  last,  and  never  shall  I  leave  it  again  !  " 
Early  in  December  he  was  stricken  with  a  numbness 
resembling  paralysis,  and  chloral,  of  which  he  had 
been  taking  enormous  doses,1  was  cut  off  entirely, 
never  to  be  resumed.  After  an  interval  of  great  suf- 
fering and  delirium,  he  awoke  "  calm  in  body,  and 
clear  in  mind,  and  grateful  in  heart."  His  delusions 
were  chiefly  over,  and  he  appeared  to  the  small 
circle  of  his  devoted  friends  a  changed  man.  But  in 
all  ways  he  was  weaker  and  his  physical  condition 
went  from  bad  to  worse.  On  the  fourth  of  February, 

1  The  amount  has  been  estimated  at  1 80  grains  a  night  ;  but  owing  to  the  skill  of 
his  house  companions  in  diluting  the  drug  it  was  probably  considerably  less  at  the 
utmost. 


214  Gbe  IRossettis. 

1882,  he  went  with  Mr.  Caine  and  his  little  sister  (a 
girl  of  thirteen)  to  Birchington-by-the-Sea,  where  he 
occupied  a  bungalow  that  was  placed  at  his  disposal 
by  his  old  friend,  John  P.  Seddon. 

On  the  journey  he  was  affectionate  and  gentle 
with  the  child,  who  thought  she  had  never  met  a 
man  so  full  of  interesting  and  attractive  ideas,  and 
during  her  stay  at  the  bungalow  he  was  continually 
thoughtful  of  her  entertainment.  In  March  his 
mother,  not  far  from  eighty-two  years  of  age,  and 
Christina,  went  down  to  Birchington.  Expecting 
them,  Rossetti  sent  for  a  chair  the  twin  of  the  one 
his  mother  used  at  home,  thus  completing  the  long 
series  of  his  loving  attentions  to  her.  His  brother 
William,  Mr.  Shields,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  Mr.  Ley- 
land,  and  Mr.  Sharp  were  also  there  from  time  to 
time  up  to  the  last.  Rossetti's  dejection  increased 
with  his  infirmity,  but  even  at  this  eleventh  hour 
there  were  rallyings  to  cheerfulness  and  interest  in 
the  external  world.  Mr.  Sharp  recalls  one  lovely 
day  when  he  and  Rossetti  stood  on  the  cliffs  looking 
seaward.  In  reply  to  his  comment  on  the  beauty 
of  the  scene,  Rossetti  said  with  feeling:  "It  is 
beautiful — the  world,  and  life  itself.  I  am  glad  I 
have  lived." 

In  a  letter  written  a  week  before  his  death  he  is 
eagerly  praising  the  work  of  the  French  painter, 
Gustave  Moreau,  of  which  an  example  had  been  sent 
him.  He  read  and  had  read  to  him  at  Birchington, 
a  number  of  novels,  among  them  Dickens's  Tale  of 


Pencil  Drawing  by  Frederick  Shields  of 

"The  Dead  Rossetti"  the  Morning 

after  his  Death  at  Birchington. 

Photographed  from  the  original  by  courtesy  of  the  owner, 
Mr.  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr. 


Gbe  Closing  ipears.  215 

Two  Cities,  and  was  interested  in  the  reviews  of  Mr. 
Caine's  book  of  collected  sonnets  which  had  just 
been  published.  He  painted  fitfully  on  a  replica  of 
the  Joan  of  Arc,  improving  it,  Miss  Caine  recalls, 
"with  every  touch."  Thus  mustering  his  faculties, 
he  retained  the  semblance,  at  least,  of  his  old  dis- 
tinctive individuality  until  within  a  few  days  of  the 
end,  which  came  on  Easter  Sunday,  the  ninth  of 
April,  1882. 

After  his  death  Mr.  Shields  made  a  drawing  of  his 
face  in  its  unfamiliar  repose,  and  a  cast  of  his  head 
was  taken.  On  the  fourteenth  of  April  the  simple 
funeral  took  place,  attended  by  a  score  or  so  of 
friends,  and  all  that  was  left  of  Rossetti  was  laid  in 
the  Birchington  churchyard,  within  sound  of  "the 
sea's  listless  chime."  There  a  tombstone  was  de- 
signed for  him  by  Madox  Brown,  and  before  his 
house  in  Cheyne  Walk  is  a  bronze  bust  by  the  same 
loyal  hand,  surmounting  a  fountain  designed  by  John 
Seddon.  This  second  memorial  was  erected  by  sub- 
scription, and  was  essentially  a  labour  of  love  on  the 
part  of  Madox  Brown,  who  wrote  after  the  friend 
of  more  than  thirty  years  was  lost  to  him  : 

"  I  cannot  make  out  how  things  are  to  go  on,  in 
so  many  directions  things  must  be  changed." 


CHAPTER  X. 
CHARACTER  AND  TEMPERAMENT. 

"  TN  many  phases  of  outward  nature,"  said  Ros- 
setti  in  his  reply  to  Robert  Buchanan's  article 
A  on  his  poetry,  ''the  principle  of  chaff  and 
grains  holds  good, — the  base  enveloping  the  precious 
continually  ;  but  an  untruth  was  never  yet  the  husk 
of  a  truth."  Certainly  the  husk  that  lay  about 
Rossetti's  finer  qualities  was  not  that  of  untruth  in 
any  of  its  forms.  "Nothing  in  him  stands  clearer 
to  my  mind,"  says  his  brother,  "than  his  total 
freedom  from  pretence."  Many  a  time  he  forged 
from  this  high  quality  a  weapon  for  others  to  wound 
him.  His  eager  and  outspoken  temper  made  the 
management  of  life  difficult  for  him.  He  could  not 
understand  in  others  any  lack  of  the  generosity  so 
natural  to  himself,  or  any  hesitation  in  upholding  the 
cause  of  a  friend.  He  was  chivalrous  to  the  point 
of  Quixotry  in  pushing  the  claims  of  others,  and 
ready  to  accept  from  those  he  loved  what  he  as 
readily  would  give.  Things  pitiful  touched  him, 
things  brave  stirred  him,  things  beautiful  inspired 

216 


Rossetti  Fountain. 

Designed  by  J.  P.  Seddon.     Bust  by  Ford  Madox  Brown. 


\RAC 

( « •  Y  >% 

ping  the[ 

;i  in 
'  No 
his  .1 

preten 


.ia. 


:iispire 


Character  anb  temperament.          217 

him.  In  many  ways  he  was  selfish  ;  he  was  cer- 
tainly a  spendthrift  ;  he  was  often  unreasonable  and 
illogical  in  his  demands  upon  the  world ;  he  did 
some  indefensible  things,  but  no  other  human  being 
could  have  done  them  with  so  little  consciousness 
of  evil,  with  such  terrible  simplicity  of  intention. 
He  seems  seldom  to  have  felt  the  bracing  sense  of 
duty  even  toward  his  art,  following  his  own  will 
wherever  it  led  him.  Fortunately,  however,  it  led 
him  for  the  most  part  toward  kind  acts,  robust  in- 
dustry, deep  sympathies,  and  a  dignified  attitude 
toward  life.  "As  the  years  rolled  on,"  his  brother 
reflects  concerning  him,  "what  he  ought  to  do  was 
very  often  what  he  chose  and  liked  to  do."  He  de- 
spised anything  like  rivalry  or  professional  jealousy, 
and  his  ability  to  sell  his  pictures  with  judgment  and 
to  advantage  was  untainted  by  any  grasping  instinct. 
He  much  resented  a  personal  slight  and  showed  in 
his  later  years  undue  susceptibility,  but  where  he 
found  loyalty  he  repaid  it  loyally,  and  was  never 
weary  of  disclosing  the  best  qualities  of  his  friends 
to  those  who  knew  them  less  intimately  than  he. 
Much  of  the  mental  suffering  that  marked  the  close 
of  his  life  was  due  to  his  self-torment  for  the  errors  of 
his  faulty  but  not  ignoble  career.  The  key-note  of 
his  ethical  creed  seems  to  have  been  never  to  treat 
any  great  emotion  or  conviction  trivially.  He  rushed 
headlong  into  many  wayward  experiences,  but  it 
could  not  be  said  of  him  that  he  was  ever  irreverent 
toward  the  nobler  impulses  of  the  mind  and  soul. 


218  £be  IRoseettte. 

Much  has  been  made  of  the  assertion  that  he  could 
not  keep  his  friends  and  it  is  true  that  many  dropped 
away  from  him,  but  his  demand  upon  friendship 
was  exacting,  and  he  could  count  to  the  very  end  an 
extraordinary  number  of  those  who  were  willing  to 
sacrifice  their  other  interests  to  serve  him  and  bear 
him  company,  and  who  found  it  well  worth  their 
while  to  undergo  his  tempestuous  moods  for  the 
reward  of  his  winning  and  affectionate  companion- 
ship, and  the  stimulus  of  his  talk.  Some  of  the 
breaks  that  occurred  between  him  and  the  men  who 
were  at  first  attracted  to  him  were  due  to  their  own 
lack  of  indulgence  toward  a  nature  that  could  not 
conform  itself  to  the  ordinary  standards.  Finding  him 
so  full  of  nobility  at  certain  points,  so  open  of  heart 
and  generous  of  speech,  they  seem  not  unnaturally 
to  have  expected  a  consistency  of  attitude  and  act 
which  he  could  not  compass  and  a  departure  from 
which  they  could  not  brook.  In  one  or  two  cases  they 
failed  to  maintain  the  reticence  their  intimacy  with 
him  ought  to  have  imposed,  and  he,  becoming  aware 
of  it,  would  have  no  more  of  them.  A  couple  of  stan- 
zas from  his  poem  Soothsay,  written  in  1881,  show 
him  reflecting  upon  this  aspect  of  human  relations. 

Let  thy  soul  strive  that  still  the  same 

Be  early  friendship's  sacred  flame. 

The  affinities  have  strongest  part 

In  youth,  and  draw  men  heart  to  heart : 

As  life  wears  on  and  finds  no  rest, 

The  individual  in  each  breast 

Is  tyrannous  to  sunder  them. 


MEMORIAL  FOUNTAIN  TO  DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI. 

Designed  by  John  P.  Seddon,  Architect. 
(Bust  of  Rossetti  by  Ford  Madox  Brown.) 


Character  ant>  temperament          219 

In  the  life-drama's  stern  cue-call, 

A  friend  's  a  part  well-prized  by  all : 

And  if  thou  meet  an  enemy, 

What  art  thou  that  none  such  should  be  ? 

Even  so  :  but  if  the  two  parts  run 

Into  each  other  and  grow  one, 

Then  comes  the  curtain's  cue  to  fall. 

That  he  was  not  stubborn  to  hold  out  against 
reconciliation  the  history  of  a  disagreement  with 
Madox  Brown  gives  evidence.  Brown,  displeased, 
had  withdrawn  himself  from  Rossetti's  society  for 
a  considerable  time.  Then  he  wrote  suggesting  a 
renewal  of  intercourse.  Rossetti's  reply  was  char- 
acteristic in  its  warm  simplicity:  "You  would  of 
course  have  been  most  welcome  all  along,  and  will 
be  simply  the  same  now.  ...  I  am  very  glad 
you  have  written  and  never  loved  you  better  than  I 
do  now,  as  I  said  to  Watts  before  we  went  to  bed 
last  night." 

Many  of  Rossetti's  difficulties  arose  from  a  want 
of  consideration,  but  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that 
from  his  childhood  he  had  cherished  imaginative 
thoughts  and  feelings  that  made  him,  as  Mr.  Caine 
has  said,  an  anachronism  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
and,  despite  his  cordial,  welcoming  manner,  essen- 
tially out  of  touch  with  most  of  the  people  by  whom 
he  was  surrounded.  No  account  of  him  could  be  so 
misleading  as  one  that  should  drag  down  quite  to  the 
commonplace  that  curious,  unworldly,  unbalanced, 
wholly  loving,  and  inspiring  personality. 

"  He  was  a  man,"  says  his  most  understanding 


220  £be  IRossettis. 

friend  and  critic,  Watts- Dunton,  "whom  it  was  im- 
possible to  know  without  deeply  loving,  and  I  will 
not  deny  that  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  be 
deeply  loved  before  he  could  be  fully  known." 

Rossetti  the  painter  and  Rossetti  the  poet  were 
much  at  one  with  Rossetti  the  man.  He  lived  in  his 
studio,  and  not,  as  many  artists  of  his  own  day,  in  a 
world  outside  of  it,  going  to  it  as  to  a  counting-house 
for  the  working  hours.  Nevertheless  he  put  into  his 
pictures,  and  into  his  poems  as  well,  only  a  partial 
suggestion  of  himself.  If  we  should  look  to  them 
alone  for  biographical  material  we  should  find  a  fair 
support  for  the  theory  long  current,  that  their  author 
was  a  being  of  abnormal  sensibilities  who  had  from 
the  beginning  of  his  career  held  himself  aloof  in  an 
atmosphere  of  visions  and  pensive  interests,  not  to  be 
associated  with  people  of  lusty  tastes  ;  leading  a  life 
of  artificial  aesthetic  culture,  and  a  proper  target  for 
the  gibes  of  men  and  women  preoccupied  with  solid 
reality.  We  get  from  them  not  a  trace  of  the  exuber- 
ant animal  spirits,  the  decision  of  manner,  the  fear- 
less, positive  utterance,  the  quickness  of  intellectual 
perception,  the  bluff  aversion  to  anything  approach- 
ing sentimentality  of  phrase  or  attitude,  by  which  he 
was  characterised  the  greater  part  of  his  life.  What  we 
do  get  from  them  is  a  combination  of  the  qualities 
least  in  evidence  to  the  casual  eye  in  his  personality, 
— the  romantic  temper  which  sees  even  in  common 
events  the  essential  and  underlying  mystery,  the 
passion  for  beauty  in  the  human  face  and  in  the  colour 


Cbaracter  attf>  temperament          221 

and  texture  of  flowers  and  stuffs  and  ornaments,  the 
overpowering  sense  of  the  beauty  and  holiness  of 
human  affections,  the  profound  conviction  that  per- 
sonal happiness  is  only  to  be  achieved  through  these 
affections. 

This  absorption  in  his  personal  feelings  united  to 
his  imaginative  power  resulted  in  work  of  a  very 
narrow  range  but  of  intense  significance.  One  of  his 
housemates  has  said  that  he  was  "somewhat  borne 
in  his  interests  both  on  canvas  and  in  verse,"  and  un- 
willing to  care  for  "certain  forms  of  literature  and  life 
which  he  admitted  were  worth  caring  for."  That  he 
did  not  try  to  care  for  those  forms  to  which  he  was 
naturally  indifferent  is  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  his 
artistic  strength.  His  efforts  would  have  been  fruit- 
less and  could  only  have  drawn  from  his  power  of 
self-expression.  His  entire  sincerity  preserved  him 
both  from  formality  and  from  affected  originality,  and 
fortified  his  prodigious  imagination  as  no  conformity 
to  a  general  standard  could  possibly  have  done.  He 
detested  systems,  political,  social,  and  artistic,  and 
he  let  them  alone.  In  the  letter  to  Mr.  Caine  on 
the  relation  of  artists  to  politics  he  recognises  his 
utter  inability  to  stand  in  any  practical  relation  to 
such  matters  of  general  importance  : 

"  For  all  I  might  desire  in  the  direction  spoken  of," 
he  says,  "volition  is  vain  without  vocation  ;  and  I 
had  better  really  stick  to  knowing  how  to  mix  ver- 
milion and  ultramarine  for  a  flesh-grey,  and  how  to 
manage  their  equivalents  in  verse.  To  speak  with- 


222  £be  iRossettte. 

out  sparing  myself, — my  mind  is  a  childish  one,  if  to 
be  isolated  in  Art  is  child's-play  :  at  any  rate  I  feel 
that  I  do  not  attain  to  the  more  active  and  practical 
of  the  mental  functions  of  manhood.  I  can  say  this 
to  you  because  I  know  you  will  make  the  best  and 
not  the  worst  of  me,  and  better  than  such  feasible 
best  I  do  not  wish  to  appear." 

His  consideration  of  pigments  and  of  words  used 
as  pigments  was  not  the  kind  of  consideration  em- 
ployed by  the  painter  who  chooses  the  forms  best 
suited  to  a  large  and  liberal  or  to  a  small  and  fastidi- 
ous brush,  or  the  colours  that  seem  to  him  best  to 
represent  a  dark  or  creamy  skin,  and  by  the  poet 
whose  desire  is  chiefly  to  express  his  thought  in 
musical  metres.  More  than  one  of  his  critics  has 
discovered  his  tendency  to  place  a  double  load  on 
each  of  his  vehicles  of  expression  in  turn  :  to  make 
sumptuously  coloured  pictures  of  his  poems,  and  of 
his  pictures  romantic  and  eloquent  poems,  but  no 
one  has  made  his  mental  processes  so  clear  as  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  in  his  article,  The  Truth  about  Rossetti. 
Of  all  who  know  him  as  a  colourist  of  superb  endow- 
ment there  is  but  a  small  proportion  who  see  in  his 
choice  of  types  more  than  an  individual  and  inexplic- 
able taste  for  sad  eyes  and  long  necks  and  large 
arms  and  full  lips  and  thin  cheeks.  But  in  this 
choice,  as  we  have  seen,  an  elaborate  scheme  of 
symbolism  was  involved,  and  applied  to  nearly  all 
of  his  later  pictures. 

"  Every  feature  had  its  suggestive  value.     To 


Character  anfc  temperament  223 

him  the  mouth  really  represented  the  sensuous  part 
of  the  face  no  less  certainly  than  the  eyes  repre- 
sented the  spiritual  part ;  and  if,  in  certain  heads, 
the  sensuous  fulness  of  the  lips  became  scarcely 
Caucasian,  this  was  a  necessary  correction  to  eyes 
which  became  on  their  part  over-mystical  in  their 
spirituality." 

In  his  poetry  we  get  a  corresponding  lack  of  sim- 
plicity and  a  passion  for  the  details  that  render  the 
greatest  possible  suggestion  and  association.  The 
value  of  each  word  as  an  interpreter  of  esoteric 
meaning  is  weighed,  and  he  had  the  zest  of  Flaubert 
in  seeking  the  unique  epithet  to  express  his  idea 
with  more  than  Flaubert's  subtlety  of  sense.  Wal- 
ter Pater,  the  most  competent  of  critics  in  this  sort, 
emphasises  the  sincerity  prompting  him  to  this  or- 
nateness,  as  it  prompted  him  to  most  of  the  results 
he  achieved  either  in  life  or  in  art.  "His  own 
meaning,"  he  says,  "was  always  personal  and  even 
recondite,  in  a  certain  sense  learned  and  casuistical, 
sometimes  complex  or  obscure  ;  but  the  term  was 
always,  one  could  see,  deliberately  chosen  from 
many  competitors,  as  the  just  transcript  of  that  pe- 
culiar phase  of  soul  which  he  alone  knew,  precisely 
as  he  knew  it." 

In  his  sonnets  his  wealth  of  imagery  is  most 
striking,  and  to  many  minds  obstructive.  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  compares  their  language  in  its  inter- 
laced fabric  of  metaphors  to  "  a  lovely  gauze  behind 
which  the  thought  is  seen  iridescent  and  alive  like  a 


224  Gbe  IRossettis. 

fish  in  a  net,"  and  sometimes  the  fish  is  rather  small 
and  unimportant  to  be  detained  by  a  net  of  such 
elaborate  construction.  His  mastery  of  the  sonnet- 
form,  however,  is  so  complete,  and  his  skill  in  carving 
it  to  his  own  idea  "  in  ivory  or  in  ebony,  as  Day  or 
Night  may  rule,"  so  consummate,  that  he  makes  on 
the  whole  for  delight  in  this  form  of  poetry  as  in 
others.  Mr.  Caine  has  found  him  the  first  English 
writer  to  obey,  throughout  a  series  of  sonnets,  the 
canon  of  the  contemporary  structure  requiring  that 
a  sonnet  shall  present  the  twofold  facet  of  a  single 
thought  or  emotion.  It  is  surprising  to  find  him 
punctilious  in  his  observance  of  this  most  restrictive 
poetic  form  when  he  so  persistently  refused  to  con- 
form in  painting  to  the  severer  models  of  that  art, 
and  Mr.  Caine  traces  his  technical  proficiency  to  the 
early  training  which  taught  him  poetry  as  he  best 
liked  to  be  taught,  in  the  form  of  a  game.  To  those 
"bouts-rimes"  in  which  the  little  Rossettis  found 
an  escape  from  the  tediousness  of  school  duties  we 
probably  owe  the  two  most  perfectly  constructed 
series  of  sonnets  the  century  has  produced, —  Dante 
Gabriel's  House  of  Life  and  Christina's  Monna  In- 
nominata. 

Despite  Rossetti's  care  in  revising  his  work  and 
his  patient  zeal  in  perfecting  it,  his  fault  is  that 
which  usually  belongs  to  the  hasty  worker, —  super- 
fluity. In  his  little  note-book  of  maxims  he  has 
noted  that  moderation  is  the  highest  law  of  poetry, 
but  no  one  could  oftener  forget  to  apply  this  law. 


Character  anfc  temperament          225 

Given  a  beautiful  subject,  the  inexhaustible  subject 
of  life,  for  example,  he  is  at  a  loss  to  understand  why 
he  should  not  talk  about  it  unrestrainedly,  and  much 
more  unrestrainedly  than  "the  modest  Saxon  point 
of  view,"  as  Mr.  James  calls  it  in  referring  to  De 
Musset's  similar  tendency,  can  justify.  The  lack 
of  reticence  we  find  in  his  sentiment  extends  to 
his  manner,  and  he  is  not  guiltless  even  of  the 
worst  indulgence  of  the  naturally  garrulous  tem- 
perament ;  of  saying  discursively  what  should  be 
said  tersely,  or  at  least  with  the  utmost  simplic- 
ity. While  he  respects  the  limitations  of  the  son- 
net with  the  respect  of  a  true  artist,  he  deliberately 
crowds  within  those  limits  every  figure  of  speech 
that  he  can  call  up  from  his  full  mind.  This  is 
the  side  of  his  poetic  art  which  it  is  easy  to  attack. 
But  the  reason  is  that  he  was  an  Italian  writing  in 
English.  Even  Dante,  "the  cast-iron  man,"  says 
Lowell,  grows  "  pliable  as  a  field  of  grain  at  the 
breath  of  Beatrice,  and  flows  away  in  waves  of  sun- 
shine." It  would  be  unintelligent  indeed  to  expect 
of  Rossetti,  who  derived  from  the  same  expansive 
nation  and  was  anything  else  than  a  cast-iron  man, 
the  taste  and  the  method  of  a  Milton.  To  himself  he 
seemed  to  have  exercised  the  utmost  control  and  to 
have  condensed  his  work  to  rather  an  astonishing 
degree.  "  Probably  the  man  does  not  live,"  he  said 
to  Mr.  Caine,  "who  could  write  what  I  have  writ- 
ten more  briefly  than  I  have  done."  Of  individual 
poems  this  is  true,  and  where  it  is  not  true, — where 


226  Gbe  IRossettis. 

he  amplifies  and  teases  his  metaphors  to  the  verge 
of  obscurity, — he  constantly  introduces  exquisite  sin- 
gle fancies  that  reconcile  the  mind  and  bewitch  the 
imagination.  Such  images  as  these  lines  convey  : 

Each  hour  until  we  meet  is  as  a  bird 

That  wings  from  far  his  gradual  way  along 

The  rustling  covert  of  my  soul  ; 

or  these  : 

The  sunrise  blooms  and  withers  on  the  hill 
Like  any  hill-flower, 

compensate  a  reader  for  the  fluency  that  occasionally 
palls. 

It  is  not,  however,  any  particular  characteristic  of 
his  style  in  painting  or  in  poetry  that  makes  Rossetti 
so  important  a  figure  among  his  contemporaries.  It 
is  what  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  calls  his  ''vision,"  his 
power  of  always  seeing  beneath  the  prosaic  aspect 
of  things  and  confronting  us  with  realities  that  are 
hidden  to  the  common  sight.  "A  sustained  im- 
pressibility towards  the  mysterious  conditions  of 
man's  every-day  life,  towards  the  very  mystery  itself 
in  it,"  says  Pater,  "gives  a  singular  gravity  to  all  his 
work  ;  these  matters  never  became  trite  to  him." 
They  have  become  trite  to  most  of  -us,  and  we  have 
certainly  to  thank  him  for  affording  us  one  glimpse 
at  this  late  time  of  a  spirit  that  languishes  in  the 
same  environment  with  science  and  civilisation. 
He  quoted  with  appreciation  the  saying  of  Keats  : 
"  I  value  more  the  privilege  of  seeing  great  things 


Proserpine. 


Character  anfc  temperament          227 

in  loneliness  than  the  fame  of  a  prophet."  And  with 
still  greater  zest  he  recounts  the  anecdote  of  Keats's 
proposing  as  a  toast,  "  Confusion  to  the  memory  of 
Newton  !"  On  Wordsworth's  wishing  to  know  why 
before  he  drank  it,  the  reply  was,  ''Because  he  de- 
stroyed the  poetry  of  the  rainbow  by  reducing  it  to 
a  prism."  *"That  is  magnificent!"  he  comments. 
And  Rossetti  also  is  magnificent  because  in  his  soul, 
"that  vexed  island  hung  between  the  upper  and 
nether  world  and  liable  to  incursions  from  both,"  his 
imagination  never  grew  dim  and  his  interest  in  hu- 
man affections  never  flagged,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end. 


CHAPTER  XI. 
CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 

THE  first  mention  we  find  of  Christina  Rossetti 
in  the  family  letters  of  her  brother,  Dante 
Gabriel,  shows  her  a  poet  of  twelve,  con- 
tributing to  one  of  the  magazines  edited  by  the 
young  Rossettis  two  poems,  in  Dante's  opinion 
"very  good"  and  according  to  the  later  judgment 
of  her  brother  William,  indisputably  bad.  Beyond 
such  fragmentary  glimpses  of  a  thoughtful  little  girl, 
"not  precocious,"  somewhat  irritable,  worshipping 
animals,  reading  little  and  only  what  hit  her  fancy, 
but  knowing  Keats  at  nine,  and  following  the  family 
occupations  of  verse-making  and  drawing,  we  see 
nothing  of  her  until  at  eighteen  she  is  posing  for  the 
Virgin  in  Rossetti's  first  picture.  She  was  then  of 
slight  figure,  with  regular,  serious  features,  lovely 
eyes,  and  an  extraordinary  expression  of  pensive 
sweetness.  Her  manner  was  characterised  by  a  cer- 
tain reserve  and  hauteur  which,  according  to  one  of 
her  friends,  gave  her  an  air  of  doing  everything 
"  from  self-respect,  not  from  fellow-feeling  with 

228 


Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


CHRi 


r 


HE  first  mention  i  1,1  Ros 

in  the  family  letters  of  her  1  Dante 

(>;;  bows  her  a  poet  of  twelve,  < 

.fthitoV  nQgfi^^^ited  by  the 
%  Ros<ettis  two    poems,   in   Dante's    op. 
y  good"  and  a  u>  the  later  judgment 

r  brother  William  bad.     Beyond 

fragn          >  glimp  htful  little 

precoci^  what  irritable,  wor 

ils,  reading  little  and  only  what  hit 
nowing  Keats  at  nine,  an,  anily 

nations  of  verse-m;; 
rig  of  her  until 


Rosseti 
jure,  with 
d  an  extn- 
IS.    Her 
rve  and  hauteur 
ids,  gave  her  a 
self-? 


cer- 

ling  to  one  of 

!g  everything 

;l!ow-feeling   with 


Christina  IRossettt  229 

others,  or  from  kindly  consideration  for  them."  Her 
health  was  delicate,  and  for  some  years  her  family 
believed  her  destined  to  an  early  death.  A  decided 
tendency  to  melancholy  marked  her  temperament 
and  her  early  poems  are  extravagantly  gloomy.  She 
was  also  very  shy,  but  charmingly,  not  painfully 
so,  her  trepidation  in  the  presence  of  strangers  tak- 
ing simple  and  winning  forms.  Her  amusements 
throughout  her  childhood  had  not  been  of  just  the 
sort  to  counteract  a  morbid  habit  of  mind.  She  had 
known  little  of  country  life,  her  infrequent  visits  to 
her  grandfather's  house  at  Holmer  Green  in  Bucking- 
hamshire, about  thirty  miles  from  London,  constitut- 
ing her  one  chance  to  cultivate  a  love  of  trees  and 
flowers  and  fields  and  ponds.  From  these  she  had 
gained  something,  but  her  principal  interest  in  them 
seems  to  have  been  the  same  that  she  took  in  the 
London  Zoological  Gardens, —  a  vivid  curiosity,  that 
is,  concerning  the  animal  life  within  range.  Her 
friendship  with  frogs,  her  sympathy  with  mice,  her 
affectionate  regard  for  caterpillars,  moved  her  friends 
to  astonishment  long  after  she  was  a  woman  grown, 
and  at  twenty-eight  we  find  her  filling  a  letter  to  her 
brother  William  with  news  of  the  lizard,  armadillos, 
wombats,  porcupines,  and  pumas  of  the  Gardens. 
This  passion  was  entirely  her  own  and  not,  as  some- 
times has  been  said,  an  effect  of  Dante  Gabriel. 

Landor  is  the  one  other  example  among  the  poets 
of  England  of  a  similar  attitude  toward  brute  creation. 
To  him,  as  to  the  Rossettis,  animals  were  individuals 


230  Gbe  TRossettis. 

with  opinions  worthy  of  respect  and  idiosyncrasies 
demanding  attention,  but  with  him  dogs  played  a 
much  more  important  part  than  they  did  with  the 
Rossettis,  for  whom,  perhaps,  they  had  too  much  the 
self-consciousness  of  the  human  being.  Christina's 
education  was  carried  on  at  home  by  her  capable 
mother,  and  she  was  of  course  brought  up  in  much 
the  same  environment  as  Dante  Gabriel.  Her  name 
"  Christina"  was  derived  from  one  of  the  Bonaparte 
family,  Lady  Dudley  Stuart,  and  as  her  biographer, 
Mr.  Mackenzie  Bell,  has  noted,  her  life,  uneventful  as 
it  was  in  personal  incident,  brought  her  constantly 
in  touch  with  eminent  and  interesting  persons.  She 
was  early  trained  to  religious  observances  by  her 
mother,  and  became  an  earnest  adherent  of  the 
Church  of  England.  At  eighteen  she  declined  an  offer 
of  marriage  from  a  Roman  Catholic  on  the  ground 
of  religious  considerations,  and  this  act  fairly  typified 
her  course  throughout  her  life.  Her  emotions,  her 
personal  desires,  and  even  her  talent  became  sub- 
dued to  her  zest  for  righteousness,  and  the  plain 
story  of  her  days  is  little  more  than  a  chronicle  of  her 
service  to  others.  She  had  absolutely  nothing  of 
Dante  Gabriel's  belief  in  the  necessary  selfishness  of 
those  possessed  of  an  originating  gift,  and  frequently 
she  let  her  own  gift  lapse  in  favour  of  duty  where 
more  persistence  might  perhaps  eventually  have  made 
for  the  greater  comfort  of  the  household  by  increas- 
ing their  very  moderate  means.  Her  first  volume 
of  poems  was  printed  privately  at  Polidori's  little 


CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI. 

(Early  sketch  by  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.) 
From  "New  Poems,"  etc.,  Macmillan  &  Co. 


Christina  IRossettl  231 

printing-press  when  she  was  seventeen  years  old,  and 
her  next  volume  was  the  Goblin  Market,  and  Other 
Poems,  published  in  1862,  fifteen  years  later.  Not 
until  1890  did  she  earn  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty 
or  two  hundred  dollars  a  year  from  her  writing. 

During  the  most  depressed  period  of  the  family 
fortunes  she  helped  her  mother  in  the  management 
of  a  little  day-school  which  was  not  a  very  success- 
ful venture.  Italian  was  of  course  as  familiar  to  her 
as  English,  but  her  reading  seems  to  have  been 
chiefly  English,  and  not  until  she  was  eighteen  did 
she  feel  the  spell  of  Dante.  As  she  did  not  lean 
toward  scholarship  she  never  became  a  very  thor- 
ough student  of  the  great  Florentine,  but  her  senti- 
ment toward  him  is  indicated  by  her  wish  that  she 
too  "  could  have  done  something  for  Dante  in  Eng- 
land," as  her  sister  and  both  her  brothers  had  done. 

In  her  youth  the  characteristics  of  her  brother 
Dante  Gabriel  and  of  her  sister  Maria  seem  to  have 
met  in  her  and  struggled  against  each  other  for  mas- 
tery, the  latter  finally  gaining  the  upper  hand ;  al- 
though a  certain  strain  of  strong  common  sense 
prevented  her  sharing  Maria's  ecstasy  of  religious  de- 
votion. Deeply  admiring  the  spirit  that  prompted 
her  sister  to  refrain  from  looking  at  the  mummies  in 
the  British  Museum  ''because  she  realised  how  the 
general  Resurrection  might  happen  'even  as  she 
looked  at  those  solemn  corpses  turned  into  a  sight 
for  sight-seers,' "  and  made  her  afraid  to  let  her  eyes 
rest  on  some  prints  from  the  Book  of  Job  which 


232  £be  IRossettis. 

"  went  counter  to  the  Second  Commandment,"  she 
herself  nevertheless  seems  free  from  its  extremes. 
Setting  to  herself  the  model,  however,  of  her  sister's 
saintly  career,  she  grew  more  and  more  away  from 
the  untutored  caprice  of  Dante  Gabriel,  and  merged 
her  strong  individuality  in  an  ideal  not  colourless 
certainly,  but  not  varying  or  complex.  Maria  event- 
ually entered  an  Anglican  convent,  and  Christina 
contented  herself  with  living  a  life  of  almost  convent- 
ual isolation,  caring  for  her  mother  and  for  two  aunts, 
all  of  whom  lived  to  a  great  age  and  greatly  required 
her  loving  attention. 

For  her  mother  she  had  a  feeling  that  fell  but  little 
short  of  adoration.  Her  first  little  privately  printed 
volume  was  dedicated  to  her,  and  later  dedications 
ran:  "To  my  Beloved  Example,  Friend,  Mother," 
"  My  Mother,  to  whom  I  inscribe  my  Book  in  all 
Reverence  and  Love,"  "  My  Dear  and  Honoured  Ex- 
ample," up  to  the  final  work  sorrowfully  inscribed  to 
her  mother's  "Beloved,  Revered,  and  Cherished 
Memory."  Fortunately  both  mother  and  daughter 
were  endowed  with  that  gift  of  the  gods,  the  faculty 
of  keeping  their  youthfulness  of  spirit,  and  they  seem 
to  have  lived  together  as  sisters  might,  with  similar 
interests  and  tastes.  Domestic  as  Mrs.  Rossetti  was 
in  her  care  for  the  physical  comfort  of  her  family,  she 
was  fully  in  sympathy  with  them  on  their  intellectual 
side,  and  her  opinion  on  niceties  of  expression  was 
deferred  to  hardly  more  by  Christina  than  by  Dante 
Gabriel.  In  the  matter  of  pronunciation,  for  example, 


Cbristina  IRossetti.  233 

she  was  a  recognised  authority  with  her  children,  Gab- 
riel refusing  to  take  even  Mr.  Watts-Dunton's  judg- 
ment against  hers.  In  her  old  age  she  liked  well  to  hear 
Christina  read  poetry  in  her  clear,  vibrant,  bell-like 
voice,  "  the  wonderful  Rossetti  voice"  that  claimed 
the  notice  of  all  who  heard  it,  and  Mr.  Sharp  remem- 
bers that  his  first  experience  of  Southwell's  poetry 
dates  from  his  first  call  on  the  mother  and  daughter : 
"  I  can  still  see  that  small  and  rather  gloomy 
room,"  he  says,  "with  Mrs.  Rossetti  sitting  back, 
with  a  woollen  Shetland  shawl  across  her  shoulders, 
and  the  lamplight  falling  on  her  white  hair  and  clear- 
cut,  ivory-hued  features,  as  she  waited  with 
closed  eyes,  the  better  to  listen  ;  at  the  table,  Miss 
Rossetti,  leaning  her  head  on  her  right  hand,  with 
her  right  elbow  on  the  table  and  with  her  left  hand 
turning  the  leaves  of  the  book."  The  poem  was  The 
Burning  Babe,  and  Mr.  Sharp  observed  the  curious 
suspiration  with  which  the  music  of  certain  lines  was 
prolonged,  and  the  way  in  which  each  word  was 
enunciated  as  completely  and  separately  as  notes  of 
music  slowly  struck  on  the  piano.  Another  friendly 
witness  speaks  of  the  mother  as  having  still  the  re- 
mains of  the  noble  beauty  which  is  in  all  Rossetti's 
portraits  of  her,  "  looking  a  really  great  old  woman/' 
and  remembers  the  gesture  with  which  she  would 
turn  to  her  daughter,  laying  a  fine  old  hand  on  hers, 
and  saying:  "My  affectionate  Christina."  This 
dedication  of  herself  to  duties  beautiful  if  not  rejuve- 
nating had  the  effect  upon  Christina  of  turning  her 


234  £be  IRossettte. 

early  dejection  into  a  much  more  blithe  and  jocund 
temper.  "I  was  a  very  melancholy  girl,"  she  once 
said  toward  the  end  of  her  life,  "but  now  I  am  a  very 
cheerful  old  woman." 

In  1866,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  she  again  suffered 
from  her  deep  interest  in  a  suitor,  whom  she  could 
not  marry  owing  to  her  religious  scruples.  This  inci- 
dent, which  involved  a  genuine  and  strong  attach- 
ment, is  probably  responsible  for  what  is  most 
moving  and  most  exquisite  in  her  poetry.  Without 
some  such  personal  experience  it  is  doubtful  if  she 
could  have  attained  the  noble  passion  of  the  Monna 
Innominata  series  of  sonnets  in  which,  speaking  for 
the  unknown  Italian  ladies  preceding  Beatrice  and 
Laura,  and  sung  by  poets  less  conspicuous  than  Dante 
and  Petrarch,  she  reveals  the  power  and  grace  of  an 
emotional  nature  veiled  by  the  steady  practice  of 
self-abnegation.  In  her  note  to  the  series  she  says  : 

"In  that  land  and  in  that  period  which  gave  si- 
multaneous birth  to  Catholics,  to  Albigenses,  and  to 
Troubadours,  one  can  imagine  many  a  lady  as  shar- 
ing her  lover's  poetic  aptitude,  while  the  barrier 
between  them  might  be  one  held  sacred  by  both, 
yet  not  such  as  to  render  mutual  love  incompatible 
with  mutual  honour.  Had  such  a  lady  spoken  for 
herself,  the  portrait  left  us  might  have  appeared  more 
tender,  if  less  dignified,  than  any  drawn  even  by  a 
devoted  friend.  Or  had  the  Great  Poetess  of  our 
own  day  and  nation  only  been  unhappy  instead  of 
happy,  her  circumstances  would  have  invited  her  to 


Mrs.  and  Miss  Christina  Rossetti,  1877. 


tion  into  a  much  more  blithe  and  jocund 

:         ./irl/!  si: 
t  now 

•wing  It 

ained  i  'lie  Mi 

•  ies  of  sonnets  in  which,  s\ 

»8wMj\        4w%<      /;ice 

Laura,  and  sung  b  <.  >us  than  Dante 

and  Petrarch,  ; 

lature  vei  . 
tion.     In  ; 

"In  that  land  and  in  that  ;  vliich 

;  birth  to  Catholi 
one  can  in: 

h  as  to  render  mutual  lov< 
- 

portrait  left  us  might 

I  the  (  of  our 

iid  nation 
drain 


Christina  IRossettl  235 

bequeath  to  us,  in  lieu  of  the  Portuguese  Sonnets,  an 
inimitable  '  donna  innominata  '  drawn  not  from  fancy 
but  from  feeling,  and  worthy  to  occupy  a  niche  beside 
Beatrice  and  Laura."  No  intelligent  reader,  however, 
could  fail  to  find  in  the  grave,  exalted  sentiment  of 
these  sonnets,  with  their  undercurrent  of  pain,  a 
more  human  and  living  spirit  than  can  ever  exist  in 
work  based  on  fancy  alone.  The  message  of  the 
eleventh  sonnet  is  poignantly  conveyed  by  them  all, 
— a  message  of  dignity  and  pathos  : 

Even  let  them  prate :  who  know  not  what  we  knew 

Of  love  and  parting  in  exceeding  pain, 

Of  parting  hopeless,  here  to  meet  again, 
Hopeless  on  earth,  and  heaven  is  out  of  view. 
But  by  my  heart  of  love  laid  bare  to  you, 

My  love  that  you  cannot  make  void  nor  vain, 
Love  that  foregoes  you  but  to  claim  anew 

Beyond  this  passage  of  the  gate  of  death, 
I  charge  you  at  the  Judgment  make  it  plain 

My  love  of  you  was  life  and  not  a  breath. 

Her  brother  has  regretted  the  morbid  note  in 
much  of  Christina's  poetry  and  in  the  early  poems  it 
is  sufficiently  apparent,  but  one  has  only  to  compare 
such  poetry  as  the  lyric  Memory,  the  sonnet  Love  Lies 
Bleeding,  The  Twilight  Night,  Shall  I  Forget  ?  and  all 
the  sonnets  of  Monna  Innominata  with  the  poems 
in  which  her  nearest  approach  to  passive  sobriety 
and  perfectly  controlled  feeling  is  made,  to  realise 
that  the  union  of  her  impetuous  sorrow  at  the  real- 
ities shadowing  her  impressionable  soul  with  the 
capacity  to  suppress  and  regulate  her  actions,  and 
ultimately  her  thoughts,  was  the  spring  of  her  rare 


236  £be  IRossettis. 

poetic  grace,  and  that  of  the  two  elements  her 
poetry  could  best  have  spared  the  latter.  Chris- 
tina's interest  in  the  heart  and  soul  of  man  entirely 
prevented  any  regret  on  her  part  that  she  was  so 
largely  cut  off  from  the  heart  of  nature.  Except 
for  eleven  months  of  1853-4  which  were  spent  with 
her  father  and  mother  at  Frome,  Selwood,  and  a  few 
visits  to  friends  in  country  places,  she  was  as  con- 
firmed a  Londoner  as  Charles  Lamb,  and  doubted 
whether  she  would  really  be  bettered  by  long  or 
frequent  sojourns  out  of  town.  A  friend  once  urged 
her  to  admit  that  she  would  be  much  happier  in  the 
peace  and  beauty  of  the  country,  but  she  responded 
by  quoting  Bacon's  assertion  that  "  the  Souls  of  the 
Living  are  the  Beauty  of  the  World."  Her  friend, 
still  unconvinced,  asked  her  if  she  did  not  at  least 
find  her  best  inspiration  in  the  country,  but  this 
drew  forth  her  delightfully  clear  and  rippling  laugh- 
ter, and  the  persistent  answer  that  while  it  ought  to 
be  so,  it  was  not ;  that  she  did  not  derive  anything 
at  all  from  the  country  at  first  hand,  and  that  she 
was  positively  in  the  place  that  suited  her  best. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  she  somewhat  exagger- 
ated her  indifference  to  the  outdoor  world.  One  of 
her  critics  has  noted  the  singularity  of  her  living  out 
almost  the  whole  of  her  life  in  "a  city  so  majestic, 
sober,  and  inspiring  as  London,"  and  never  bringing 
the  consciousness  of  streets  and  thoroughfares  and 
populous  murmurs  into  her  writings.  "She  whose 
heart  was  so  with  birds  and  fruits,  corn-fields  and 


Christina  IRossettl  237 

farmyard  sounds,"  he  says,  "never  even  revolts 
against  or  despairs  of  the  huge  desolation,  the  labor- 
ious monotony  of  a  great  town.  She  does  not  sing 
of  the  caged  bird,  with  exotic  memories  of  freedom 
stirred  by  the  flashing  water,  the  hanging  groundsel 
of  her  wired  prison,  but  with  a  wild  voice,  with 
visions  only  limited  by  the  rustic  conventionalities 
of  toil  and  tillage.  The  dewy  English  woodland, 
the  sharp  silences  of  winter,  the  gloom  of  low-hung 
clouds,  and  the  sigh  of  weeping  rains  are  her  back- 
grounds." She  cared  for  nature,  according  to  her 
own  admission,  much  more  than  she  cared  for  art, 
and  when  it  came  in  her  way  to  observe  it,  she 
memorized  its  phenomena  to  an  astonishing  degree. 
She  had  the  habit  in  composition  of  closing  her  eyes 
and  calling  up  her  subject  before  her  mental  vision, 
especially  its  landscape  setting  when  this  was  a  part 
of  her  scheme,  and  her  imagination,  like  Dante 
Gabriel's,  was  so  vivid  that  she  was  able  thus  to 
produce  a  realistic  impression  of  the  most  minute 
details  of  country  scenery  while  sitting  in  her  upper 
bedroom  whose  outlook  was  toward  nothing  more 
rural  than  the  dingy  walls  of  adjacent  houses.  One 
of  the  series  of  sonnets  called  Later  Life  commences: 

A  host  of  things  I  take  on  trust;  I  take 
The  nightingales  on  trust,  for  few  and  far 
Between  those  actual  summer  moments  are 

When  I  have  heard  what  melody  they  make, 

and  until  she  was  forty-six  or  -seven  years  old  a  sun- 
rise was  one  of  the  host  of  things  to  be  taken  on 


238  Gbe  IRossettis. 

trust.  Then  under  the  persuasion  of  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton's  belief  that  a  sunrise  was  a  very  different 
spectacle  from  a  sunset,  and  that  most  poets  derived 
their  descriptions  of  the  former  from  the  latter,  she 
decided  that  a  sunrise  she  would  see.  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  thus  describes  the  experience  : 

"  One  morning  we  went  out  just  as  the  chilly  but 
bewitching  shiver  of  the  dawn-breeze  began  to  move, 
and  the  eastern  sky  began  slowly  to  grow  grey. 
Early  as  it  was,  however,  many  of  the  birds  were 
awake,  and  waiting  to  see  what  we  went  out  to  see, 
as  we  knew  by  the  twitter  after  twitter  coming  from 
the  hedgerows.  Christina  was  not  much  interested 
at  first,  but  when  the  grey  became  slowly  changed 
into  a  kind  of  apple-green  crossed  by  bars  of  lilac, 
and  then  by  bars  of  pink  and  gold,  and,  finally,  when 
the  sun  rose  behind  a  tall  clump  of  slender  elms  so 
close  together  that  they  looked  like  one  enormous 
tree,  whose  foliage  was  sufficiently  thin  to  allow  the 
sunbeams  to  pour  through  it  as  a  glittering  lacework 
of  dewy  leaves,  she  confessed  that  no  sunset  could 
surpass  it.  And  when  the  sun,  growing  brighter 
still,  and  falling  upon  a  silver  sheet  of  mist  in  which 
the  cows  were  lying,  turned  it  into  a  sheet  of  gold, 
and  made  each  brown  patch  on  each  cow's  coat  gleam 
like  burnished  copper,  then  she  admitted  that  a  sun- 
rise surpassed  a  sunset,  and  was  worth  getting  up  to 
see.  She  stood  and  looked  at  it,  and  her  lips  moved 
out  in  a  whisper  that  I  could  not  hear."  "Yet  so 
powerful  is  the  force  of  habit,"  he  adds,  "that  I 


Christina  IRossettl  239 

greatly    doubt    whether    Christina    ever   took   the 
trouble  to  see  another  sunrise." 

In  1865  Christina  Rossetti  made  the  journey  to 
Italy  never  accomplished  by  Dante  Gabriel  who  was 
so  much  more  an  Italian  than  she.  To  her  "half- 
Italian  heart  "  as  she  called  it,  the  appeal  was  strong. 
The  "country  half  her  own,"  seemed  to  her  the 
loveliest  of  lands  :  "Its  people  is  a  noble  people," 
she  writes,  "  and  its  very  cattle  are  of  high-b.orn 
aspect."  Leaving  it,  she  embodied  her  thrill  of  the 
true  inimitable  patriotism  in  the  little  poem  En'Route: 

Farewell,  land  of  love,  Italy, 

Sister-land  of  Paradise  : 
With  mine  own  feet  I  have  trodden  thee 

Have  seen  with  mine  own  eyes  : 
I  remember,  thou  forgettest  me, 
I  remember  thee. 

Blessed  be  the  land  that  warms  my  heart, 
And  the  kindly  clime  that  cheers, 

And  the  cordial  faces  clear  from  art, 
And  the  tongue  sweet  in  mine  ears  : 

Take  my  heart,  its  truest,  tenderest  part, 
Dear  land,  take  my  tears. 

From  this  time  until  1871  Christina's  life  seems  to 
have  been  set  in  paths  of  great  serenity.  In  1866 
she  made  a  visit  of  seven  weeks  at  Penkill  Castle 
where  Rossetti  visited  two  years  later,  and  returned 
"  well  content  to  be  at  home  again  and  take  her  turn 
at  housekeeping."  She  went  occasionally  into  so- 
ciety, and  wrote  a  considerable  number  of  poems. 
In  1866  The  Prince's  Progress,  and  Other  Poems,  with 


240  Gbe  1Ros0ett!0. 

two  beautiful  designs  by  Dante  Gabriel,  was  brought 
out.  In  1870  the  prose  volume  Commonplace  and 
Other  Short  Stories  made  its  appearance.  Dante  Ga- 
briel's verdict  concerning  it — that  it  was  certainly  not 
dangerously  exciting  to  the  nervous  system  —  was 
truer  than  his  less  discouraging  assurance  that  it  was 
nevertheless  far  from  being  dull  and  would  be  likely 
to  take.  It  did  not  take,  and  she  went  back  for  a 
time  to  the  poetry  which  he  told  her  was  her  proper 
business  to  write  instead  of  Commonplaces. 

In  1871  she  was  stricken  with  the  terrible  disease 
that  so  changed  her  appearance  during  the  remaining 
three-and-twenty  years  of  her  life,  the  exophthalmic 
bronchocele  which  has  for  its  most  noticeable  symp- 
tom a  marked  protrusion  of  the  eyeballs. 

Dante  Gabriel's  chalk  drawing  of  her,  made  five 
years  before,  shows  her  face  at  its  most  attractive 
period,  in  the  calmness  of  its  maturity,  before  this 
cruel  disfigurement,  which  to  her  friends  was  never- 
theless negligible  and  which  diminished  with  time. 
Later  in  life  she  grew  stout  with  a  certain  heaviness 
of  expression  dissipated  by  her  exquisite  smile.  Mr. 
Sharp  has  described  her  as  she  appeared  to  him  at 
their  first  meeting  in  the  early  eighties  : 

"  In  some  ways,"  he  says,  "she  reminded  me  of 
Mrs.  Craik,  the  author  of  John  Halifax,  Gentleman; 
that  is,  in  the  Quaker-like  simplicity  of  her  dress,  and 
the  extreme  and  almost  demure  plainness  of  the  ma- 
terial, with,  in  her  mien,  something  of  that  serene 
passivity  which  has  always  a  charm  of  its  own.  She 


Christina  IRossettl  241 

was  so  pale  as  to  suggest  anaemia,  though  there  was 
a  bright  and  alert  look  in  her  large  and  expressive 
azure-grey  eyes,  a  colour  which  often  deepened  to  a 
dark,  shadowy,  velvety  grey ;  and  though  many 
lines  were  imprinted  on  her  features,  the  contours 
were  smooth  and  young.  Her  hair,  once  a  rich 
brown,  now  looked  dark,  and  was  thickly  threaded 
with  solitary  white  hairs,  rather  than  sheaves  of  grey. 
She  was  about  the  medium  height  of  women,  though 
at  the  time  I  thought  her  considerably  shorter.  With 
all  her  quietude  of  manner  and  self-possession,  there 
was  a  certain  perturbation  from  this  meeting  with  a 
stranger,  though  one  so  young  and  unknown.  I 
noted  the  quick,  alighting,  glance,  its  swift  with- 
drawal ;  also  the  restless,  intermittent  fingering  of 
the  long,  thin,  double  watch-guard  of  linked  gold 
which  hung  from  below  the  one  piece  of  colour  she 
wore,  a  quaint,  old-fashioned  bow  of  mauve  or  pale 
purple  ribbon,  fastening  a  white  frill  at  the  neck." 

Her  quietness,  the  "drab  colour"  of  her  exist- 
ence, of  her  manner,  and  of  much  of  her  later  writ- 
ing, is  the  quality  that  seems  most  to  have  impressed 
those  who  have  written  reminiscently  of  her,  the 
qualities  showing  her  kinship  with  Dante  Gabriel's 
anything  but  drab-coloured  temperament  having 
been  successfully  buried.  Yet,  as  we  find  her  by  his 
side  whenever  his  own  condition  is  more  than  usu- 
ally perturbing — at  Kelmscott,  at  Bognor,  at  Hunt- 
er's Forestall,  and  finally  at  Birchington-by-the-Sea 
— we  feel  in  her  devotion  to  him  something  much 

16 


242  Hbe  1Ro00ettte. 

more  than  duteous  impulse  and  family  affection. 
The  sympathetic  fire  at  the  basis  of  her  own  heroic- 
ally controlled  nature  seems  to  give  her  an  indulgent 
comprehension  of  his,  and  despite  their  diametrically 
opposite  ways  in  life  the  two  remained  in  some  re- 
spects alike  to  the  end.  Their  memoirs  show  absol- 
utely distinct  types  fitted  to  set  each  other  off  by 
the  force  of  contrast,  but  one  can  hardly  read  the 
poems  of  both,  so  expressive  of  their  inner  life,  with- 
out realising  that  Christina  needed  little  of  her  bound- 
less generosity  toward  those  differing  from  her  in  act 
and  opinion  to  help  her  fathom  Rossetti.  Many  of 
the  impulses  that  swayed  him  frequently  toward 
his  own  unhappiness  found  their  counterpart  in  one 
who  could  write  before  she  was  eighteen  the  son- 
net The  Whole  Head  is  Sick  and  the  Whole  Heart 
Faint.  The  tendency  toward  symbolism  that  led 
him  to  read  disaster  in  a  tree  felled  by  a  storm,  and 
see  in  a  bird  fluttering  at  his  feet  the  re-incarnated 
spirit  of  his  wife,  appears  in  almost  every  poem  she 
wrote.  Like  him  she  was  practical  on  certain  sides, 
and,  like  him  also,  lavish  with  worldly  goods.  In 
both  the  spirit  struggled  gallantly  with  the  flesh,  and 
in  Christina's  nature  at  least  won  the  victory  without 
dispute. 

In  The  Face  of  the  Deep,  that  fine  failure  of  her 
last  days,  she  writes  with  irresistible  quaintness  : 
"Whilst  studying  the  devil  I  must  take  heed  that 
my  study  become  not  devilish  by  reason  of  sympa- 
thy," but  her  study  of  what  she  called  the  devil,  and 


dbnetina  IRossettl  243 

of  his  two  companions,  the  world  and  the  flesh,  had 
given  her  a  power  to  grapple  with  realities  denied  to 
the  born  ascetic.  The  image  in  her  mind  is  seldom 
seen  in  the  typical  dimness  of  religious  light,  but  in 
the  full  glory  of  the  world's  warm  sunshine.  What 
one  of  her  critics  has  called  her  "fair,  stern  philoso- 
phy "  is  learned  not  in  a  guarded  retreat  or  cloister, 
but  on  a  battlefield  of  clashing  emotions.  Her  peni- 
tent on  the  convent  threshold  looks  earthward  not 
to  see,  in  the  world  she  is  leaving,  dross  and  vanity, 
but  to  realise  a  pageant  as  fair  as  it  might  appear  to 
the  merriest  reveller  taking  part  in  it  : 

Milk-white,  wine-flushed  among  the  vines, 
Up  and  down  leaping,  to  and  fro, 
Most  glad,  most  full,  made  strong  with  wines, 
Blooming  as  peaches  pearled  with  dew, 
Their  golden  windy  hair  afloat, 
Love-music  warbling  in  their  throat, 
Young  men  and  women  come  and  go. 

And,  looking  forward  to  the  heaven  she  hopes  by 
fasting  and  prayer  to  enter,  the  same  penitent  fore- 
sees no  visionary  Paradise  of  song  and  praise  and 
passive  peace,  but  the  joy  of  earth  renewed  : 

There  we  shall  meet  as  once  we  met, 
And  love  with  old  familiar  love. 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  knowing  Christina  only  dur- 
ing the  wholly  self-abnegating  years  of  her  life,  was 
still  acute  enough  to  catch  the  suggestion  of  this 
fervid  strain  linking  her  sympathetically  to  the  man 
he  so  much  loved.  "No  doubt,"  he  says,  "there 


244  Gbe  1Ro00ett!0. 

was  mixed  with  her  spiritualism,  or  perhaps  under- 
lying it,  a  rich  sensuousness  that  under  other  cir- 
cumstances of  life  would  have  made  itself  manifest, 
and  also  a  rare  potentiality  of  deep  passion." 

For  this  reason  many  of  her  poems  on  sin,  of 
which,  of  course,  she  knew  nothing  at  all  experi- 
mentally, are  quick  with  intelligence  and  move  the 
heart  profoundly.  For  this  reason,  too,  she  empha- 
sised the  straitness  and  narrowness  of  the  positively 
virtuous  path.  It  was  no  part  of  her  scheme  of 
morality  to  point  out  its  pleasantness.  Renuncia- 
tion is  not  pleasant.  The  generous  capacity  to  love 
and  to  enjoy  the  jocund  life  of  careless  self-indulg- 
ence will  see  no  beauty,  she  well  knows,  in  the 
patient  ascent.  Thus,  without  descending  to  com- 
promise or  hypocrisy,  she  trusts  to  the  spur  of  the 
truth  : 

Does  the  road  wind  up-hill  all  the  way  ? 

Yes,  to  the  very  end. 
Will  the  day's  journey  take  the  whole  long  day  ? 

From  morn  till  night,  my  friend. 

Someone  has  said  that  the  warmth  of  her  person- 
ality revealed  itself  in  her  eyes, 

That  seemed  to  love  whate'er  they  looked  upon. 

After  her  fierce  illness  she  liked  to  veil  these  eyes 
from  strangers,  her  friends  say,  and  as  her  bodily 
infirmities  increased  she  certainly  veiled  more  and 
more  the  ardour  of  her  temperament.  The  purpose 
of  her  life  became  firmly  repressive,  and  to  such 


Cbristina  IRossetti.  245 

repression  she  counselled  others,  dropping  gradually 
into  the  conventionalities  of  real  religious  expression. 
Certain  passages  of  her  prose  are  the  very  children 
of  the  spirit  in  which  the  Imitation  of  Christ  was 
written  by  that  gentle  monk  who  to  the  outer  eye 
knew  a  life  more  placid  even  than  Christina's. 

"  Strip  sin  bare  from  the  voluptuousness  of 
music,  fascination  of  gesture,  entrancement  of  the 
stage,  rapture  of  poetry,  glamour  of  eloquence,  se- 
duction of  imaginative  emotion  ;  strip  it  of  every 
adornment ;  let  it  stand  out  bald  as  in  the  Ten  stern 
Commandments.  Study  sin,  when  study  it  we 
must,  not  as  a  relishing  pastime  but  as  an  embitter- 
ing deterrent.  Lavish  sympathy  on  the  sinner, 
never  on  the  sin." 

In  1876  Maria  Rossetti  died,  and  in  the  autumn  of 
the  same  year  Christina,  her  mother,  and  her  two 
aunts  settled  at  30  Torrington  Square,  which  con- 
tinued to  be  Christina's  home  for  the  remaining 
eighteen  years  of  her  life.  The  house  was  a  com- 
monplace abode  of  dingy  brick.  The  interior  im- 
pressed all  those  who  have  written  of  it  by  its 
sombre  aspect,  one  witness  characterising  its  spiritual 
atmosphere  as  that  of  old  age,  "  a  silence  that  draped 
and  muffled  "  the  place.  It  was  plainly  furnished, 
but  Dante  Gabriel's  gifts  of  old  furniture,  to  which 
he  alludes  from  time  to  time  in  his  letters,  were  scat- 
tered through  the  rooms,  and  some  of  his  pictures 
hung  upon  the  walls.  In  the  drawing-room  was  a 
little  glass  case  of  ferns  which  Christina  cherished. 


246  Gbe  IRossettis. 

She  had  the  belief  that  plants  were  conscious  in  a 
way  of  their  own,  and  when  she  was  told  that  sci- 
ence upheld  this  idea  she  exclaimed,  as  her  brother 
might  have  done  :  "  There  is  something  in  science 
after  all." 

There  was  no  garden  to  the  house,  merely  a  little 
yard  at  the  back,  and  this  defect  made  Dante  Gabriel 
wonder  that  they  could  go  on  living  there  when  for 
the  same  rent  they  could  find  places  with  ample 
grounds.  It  is  a  significant  detail  that  Christina's 
library  contained  few  books,  and  that  nineteen-twen- 
tieths  of  these,  according  to  her  brother  William, 
were  of  her  mother's  choosing.  Cranford  was  one 
of  her  favourites,  and  she  liked  certain  novels,  but 
bookishness  was  not  her  foible. 

After  Dante  Gabriel's  death  in  1882  Christina  and 
her  mother  spent  nine  weeks  at  Birchington  awaiting 
the  completion  of  the  stained-glass  window  to  his 
memory  placed  in  the  church  there  at  his  mother's 
expense.  Christina  undertook  the  correspondence 
involved,  and  her  letters  to  Mr.  Shields  who  exe- 
cuted the  work  are  models  of  fine  tact  and  good- 
feeling,  and  throw  also  much  light  on  the  practical 
methods  of  the  splendid  old  lady  to  whom  now,  as 
of  old,  debt  was  an  enemy  to  grapple  with  untiringly. 

"It  will  always  remain  your  labour  of  love," 
Christina  writes  at  the  close  of  the  episode,  "but  my 
Mother  begs  you  as  soon  as  possible  to  let  her  have 
an  exhaustive  list  of  her  money  debts  to  the  Glass 
Firm  and  much  more  to  yourself:  that  she  may  as 


ROSSETTI'S  TOMBSTONE  IN  BIRCHINGTON  CHURCHYARD. 


Cbrietina  IRossettl  247 

quickly  as  she  can  meet  her  liabilities.  At  84  she 
feels  that  to-day's  duty  had  more  than  ever  better 
be  performed  to-day  and  not  postponed  until  to- 
morrow." 

In  1886  Mrs.  Rossetti  died:  "I  am  glad  it  is  I 
and  not  she  that  is  left  sorrowful  and  lonely,"  Chris- 
tina said  :  but  after  this  she  herself  grew  old  and 
lost  much  of  the  brightness  so  bravely  cultivated  in 
the  unpropitious  ground  of  her  natural  temperament. 
Her  passionate  attachment  to  her  mother  had  taken 
tender  and  protecting  forms  as  age  made  its  pitiful 
appeal.  The  "Beloved  Example"  became  also  the 
beloved  child,  to  be  pleased  with  playful  attentions. 
One  of  these  was  a  habit  begun  in  1876  and  carried 
on  for  ten  years,  of  writing  verses  to  her  on  St. 
Valentine's  day,  she  having  reflected  that  she  had 
never  received  a  valentine.  Each  one  that  came 
thereafter  was  a  fresh  surprise,  as  in  the  interval  the 
good  lady  had  forgotten  all  about  the  new  custom. 
The  little  verses  are  all  of  them  touching  enough  in 
their  simplicity,  and  those  dated  1885  are  especially 
so  in  their  picture  of  the  gentle  companionship  so 
soon  to  be  dissolved  : 

You  and  I,  my  Mother, 

Have  lived  the  winter  through, 
And  still  we  play  our  daily  parts 

And  still  find  work  to  do: 
And  still  the  cornfields  flourish, 

The  olive  and  the  vine, 
And  still  you  reign  my  Queen  of  Hearts 

And  I  'm  your  Valentine. 


248  Gbe  1Ro60ett!0. 

Christina's  two  aunts  outlived  her  mother,  one 
by  three,  the  other  by  seven  years,  so  it  was  not 
until  1893  that  she  was  left  to  fight  her  own  long 
last  battle  comparatively  alone.  She  survived  eight- 
een months,  dying  of  cancer,  complicated  by  a  func- 
tional disease  of  the  heart  and  by  dropsy,  on  the 
29th  of  December,  in  her  sixty-fourth  year.  Her 
life  had  not  been  eventful,  but  she  was  worn  by  its 
inner  tumults  and  even  at  the  last  was  troubled  in 
conscience  for  Heaven  knows  what  imaginary  failures 
in  attaining  her  austere  ideal.  She  who  was  called 
above  all  writers  "the  singer  of  death,"  and  who  had 
kept  it  in  view,  not  always  with  the  exaltation  of  the 
saint,  frequently  with  the  very  human  hope  of  find- 
ing through  it  the  love  long  relinquished  on  earth, 
and  sometimes  with  the  human  dread  of  being  for- 
gotten by  those  whose  "life  stood  full  at  blessed 
noon,"  was  tired  enough  finally  to  regard  it  in  her 
last  poem  as  pure  and  simple  rest : 

Fast  asleep.     Singing  birds  in  their  leafy  cover 

Cannot  wake  her,  nor  shake  her  the  gusty  blast — 
Under  the  purple  thyme  and  the  purple  clover 
Sleeping  at  last. 

She  was  buried  in  the  family  plot  at  Highgate 
Cemetery. 

The  outline  of  Christina  Rossetti's  life  is  so  slender 
and  so  monotonous  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
gain  from  it  a  definite  portrait  of  her  mental  and 
spiritual  aspect.  For  this  we  must  look  within  her 
work,  and  play  at  the  dangerous  game  of  inferences. 


Cbrtetina  IRossetti.  249 

Certain  features  seem  to  stand  out  descriptive  in  this 
exceedingly  personal  work  of  hers  and  tend  to  make 
us  believe  that  the  image  of  her  in  the  minds  of  the 
persons  who  knew  her  last,  and  who  have  written 
of  her  from  the  standpoint  of  that  knowledge,  is  a 
very  partial  image  from  which  much  life  has  fled. 
With  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  saintliness  of  her 
ways  they  lose  sight  of  the  contest  in  which  that 
saintliness  has  been  won.  And  yet  no  writer  has 
been  at  less  pains  to  conceal  or  disguise  this  con- 
test. Perhaps  the  explanation  of  her  lifelong  as- 
piration toward  a  goal  from  which  her  thought 
constantly  wandered  earthward  was  her  depend- 
ence upon  natures  firmer  than  her  own.  Of  his 
sisters  Rossetti  once  said,  "Maria  was  the  leader. 
Christina  could  never  lead  anyone."  And  it  is 
apparently  true  enough  that  she  followed  Maria's 
footsteps  to  the  very  threshold  of  the  convent,  paus- 
ing there  only  because  the  qualities  that  kept  her 
from  leadership  made  her  the  one  to  assume  the 
duties  of  family  life.  To  humble  herself  seemed  to 
be  her  great  ambition.  Just  before  she  died  she  said, 
"This  illness  has  humbled  me.  I  was  so  proud  be- 
fore." And  thus  humility  has  naturally  been  set 
down  as  one  of  her  conspicuous  virtues.  But  this 
gentle  characteristic  becomes  more  attractive  if  we 
remember  that  it  was  the  conscious  reaction  of  a 
temperament  not  free  from  pride.  Whatever  she 
was,  she  was  not  quiescent.  She  never  forgot  that 
happiness  consists  in  getting  what  we  want  and  not 


250  £be  iRossettte. 

of  doing  without  it.  She  never  cheated  herself  into 
thinking  that  self-denial  was  pleasant  or  that  the  joys 
of  the  religious  life  were  the  only  joys  worth  know- 
ing. With  all  her  sincere  belief  in  the  vast  import- 
ance of  her  own  methods  of  nourishing  the  soul  she 
had  a  liberal  indulgence  toward  those  who  found  the 
pagan  world  beautiful.  "  The  poet  and  saint,  who 
has  passed  from  a  world  she  never  loved,"  wrote  one 
of  her  friends  after  her  death,  "  lived  a  life  of  sacrifice, 
suffered  many  partings,  unreluctantly  endured  the 
pains  of  her  spirituality  ;  but  she  kept,  in  their  quick- 
ness, her  simple  and  natural  love  of  love  and  hope  of 
joy  for  another  time.  Such  sufferings  as  hers  do  in- 
deed refuse,  but  they  have  not  denied,  delight.  De- 
light is  all  their  faith."  Perhaps  it  would  have  been 
even  truer  to  say  that  she  passed  from  a  world  whose 
passionate  wooing  of  her  nature  had  won  her  love  in- 
deed, but  which  she  had  resolutely  put  aside,  hoping 
none  the  less  to  find  it  and  no  other  world  in  a 
heaven  where  she  could  innocently  yield  to  it. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI  :  HER  POETRY. 

DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI,  writing  to 
Christina  on  the  subject  of  her  poetry,  bade 
her  beware  "of  what  might  be  called  a 
falsetto-muscularity  of  style."  For  this  brotherly 
anxiety  there  was  little  cause.  The  quality  of  Chris- 
tina's imagination  and  the  quality  of  her  expression 
are  alike  feminine.  Even  her  thoughts  are  restricted 
to  the  simple  round  of  "woman's  sphere," — of  the 
mediaeval  woman's  sphere,  indeed,  which  encom- 
passed loving  and  grieving  and  praying.  We  find  in 
her  poetry  neither  politics  nor  socialism  nor  pedan- 
try ;  we  hear  only  the  subdued  tones  of  pathos  and 
of  sentiment  in  a  voice  so  plaintive  and  so  sweet  that 
we  hardly  notice  its  penetrating  power.  Neither 
do  we  notice  very  much  the  art  with  which  the 
poetry  is  made.  The  lines  are  frequently  so  way- 
ward, the  lapses  in  metre  and  rhyme  are  so  surpris- 
ing, the  language  is  usually  so  homely  and  direct, 
that  we  are  sometimes  inclined  to  deny  that  the 
form  is  artistic  at  all,  and  to  base  the  extraordinary 

251 


252  Gbe  IRossettte. 

appeal  made  by  her  poems  upon  their  message  and 
the  purity  of  their  suggestion.  One  of  her  critics  did, 
in  fact,  say  with  kindly  hesitation  :  "  At  its  best  her 
work  is  almost  art."  Perhaps  this  is  true.  Certainly 
at  its  best  her  genius  pours  the  thought  into  a  mould 
so  beautiful  that  no  fastidious  selection  could  improve 
it,  but  so  vital  and  characteristic  that  to  speak  of  it 
as  art  seems  almost  to  belittle  it.  The  informing 
spirit  at  these  moments  seems,  as  far  as  such  a  thing 
is  possible,  independent  of  the  form.  The  emotion 
may  be  conveyed,  as  in  the  sonnets  of  Monna  Innomi- 
nata,  by  lines  of  exquisitely  tender  dignity,  flowing 
like  a  broad  and  stately  river  unbrokenly  toward  the 
deeps  of  feeling,  or  by  lines  as  rugged  as  The  Despised 
and  Rejected  contains,  or  as  halting  and  wilful  as 
those  of  the  Autumn  stanzas,  without  differing  greatly 
in  its  power  over  the  reader.  Sometimes,  indeed, 
her  caprice  of  method  lends  charm  to  the  result,  giv- 
ing it  the  unexpectedness  of  inspiration,  bringing  the 
poetic  vision  uncorrected  into  the  reader's  presence 
with  the  confiding  boldness  and  fascination  of  a 
beautiful  child.  Nor  is  her  attitude  toward  her  poetry 
an  artful  one  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  her 
father's  mantle  of  improvisation  that  has  descended 
upon  her,  and  she  sings  at  her  work,  at  her  monot- 
onous and  commonplace  tasks,  with  the  spontaneity 
of  a  thrush.  She  had  no  gift  of  self-criticism,  and  her 
Muse  played  her  at  times  the  shabbiest  of  tricks,  let- 
ting her  admit  what  Lowell  calls  "  an  every-dayness" 
of  phrase  or  a  reflection  hopelessly  prosaic  to  the 


Christina  IRossetti:  Iber  poetry        253 

same  page  with  her  true  Dasmon.  In  The  Lambs  of 
Grasmere,  for  example,  she  seems  overwhelmed  by 
the  influence  of  Grasmere's  poet  at  his  most  ludicrous 
moments  when  in  good  faith  she  can  write  : 

Day  after  day,  night  after  night, 

From  lamb  to  lamb  the  shepherds  went, 

With  teapots  for  the  bleating  mouths, 
Instead  of  nature's  nourishment. 

Yet  following  this  unpoetical  outpouring  come  the 
rapturous  verses  called  A  Birthday,  the  gayest  and 
blithest  she  ever  wrote,  overrunning  with  exultant 
metaphor  and  liberal  vitality  : 

My  heart  is  like  a  singing  bird 

Whose  nest  is  in  a  watered  shoot ; 
My  heart  is  like  an  apple-tree 

Whose  boughs  are  bent  with  thick-set  fruit ; 
My  heart  is  like  a  rainbow  shell 

That  paddles  in  a  halcyon  sea  ; 
My  heart  is  gladder  than  all  these 

Because  my  love  is  come  to  me. 

Raise  me  a  dais  of  silk  and  down  : 

Hang  it  with  rare  and  purple  dyes  : 
Carve  it  in  doves  and  pomegranates, 

And  peacocks  with  a  hundred  eyes  : 
Work  it  in  gold  and  silver  grapes, 

In  leaves  and  silver  fleurs-de-lys  : 
Because  the  birthday  of  my  life 

Is  come,  my  love  is  come  to  me. 

We  know  from  her  brother  William  how  much 
she  was  actually  at  the  service  of  her  gift.  "  Some- 
thing would  come  into  her  mind  and  her  hand  would 
obey  the  dictation."  He  supposes  that  afterward  she 
took  the  pains  she  thought  requisite  to  the  form,  but 


254  £be  IRossettis. 

there  is  no  evidence  that  she  laboured  greatly  to  this 
end,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  although  he  was  almost 
constantly  in  the  same  house  with  her  up  to  her 
forty-sixth  year,  he  cannot  remember  ever  seeing  her 
(except  in  their  childish  rhyming  games)  "  in  the  act 
of  composition."  She  had  none  of  Dante  Gabriel's 
passion  for  revision,  nor  did  she  have  the  habit  of 
submitting  her  work  to  others  for  criticism,  although 
to  him  she  sent  two  volumes  of  her  poems  before 
their  publication  that  he  might  advise  her  concerning 
them. 

Her  first  volume,  setting  aside  the  little  book  pri- 
vately printed  by  her  grandfather,  bore  the  title  Gob- 
lin Market,  and  Other  Poems.  The  opening  poem, 
Goblin  Market,  is  her  witch-child.  It  has  been  com- 
pared to  The  Pied  Piper  ofHamelin  and  to  The  Rime 
of  the  Ancient  Mariner  and  to  Grimm's  Fairy  Tales, 
and  it  is  not  in  the  least  like  any  of  them  except  that 
it  journeys  through  the  land  of  unreality.  It  is  surely, 
said  a  critic  in  the  London  Quarterly  Review,  "the 
most  naive  and  childlike  poem  in  our  language. 
The  narrative  has  so  matter-of-fact,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  fantastic  and  bewildering  an  air,  that  we  are 
fairly  puzzled  into  acceptance  of  everything.  The 
very  rhythm,  the  leaping  and  hopping  rhythm,  which 
renders  the  goblin  merchantmen  visible  to  us,  has 
something  elfin  and  proper  to  the  '  little  people '  in  its 
almost  infantile  jingle  and  cadence.  It  is  all  as  fresh 
and  as  strange  as  the  dreams  of  childhood."  Accept- 
ing this  infantile  jingle  and  cadence,  this  whimsical, 


Cbristina  TRoseetti:  1ber  poetry        255 

leaping  spirit  of  childhood,  as  the  great  characteristic 
of  the  poem,  we  get  from  it  also  something  decidedly 
unchildish  ;  or  perhaps  it  would  be  truer  to  say  that 
the  unconscious  sensibility  of  childhood  to  the  glow- 
ing beauty  of  the  pagan  natural  world  and  to  its  lus- 
cious and  liberal  delights  is  rendered  with  mature 
consciousness.  Only  an  Italian — a  grown-up  child, 
that  is — could  have  brought  about  the  combination 
in  just  such  a  way. 

The  story  is  itself  childish  enough,  with  an  obvi- 
ous moral.  Two  sisters,  Laura  and  Lizzie,  visit  the 
typical  glen  where  one  "daren't  go  a-hunting  for 
fear  of  little  men."  The  little  men  are  there — 

One  had  a  cat's  face, 

One  whisked  a  tail, 
One  tramped  at  a  rat's  pace, 

One  crawled  like  a  snail, 
One  like  a  wombat  prowled  obtuse  and  furry, 
One  like  a  ratel  tumbled  hurry-scurry. 

They  try  to  sell  fruit  to  the  sisters,  and  "sweet- 
toothed  Laura  "  presently  succumbs.  She  has  no 
money,  so  they  accept  in  payment  a  golden  curl  cut 
from  her  head.  She  eats  the  fruit  in  spite  of  Lizzie's 
warning  reminders  of  a  certain  dead  Jeanie  who  had 
done  likewise  and  had  pined  and  pined  away,  to  fall 
with  the  first  snow.  In  time  Laura  also  begins  to 
dwindle  and  grow  pale,  and  Lizzie,  to  save  her,  re- 
turns to  the  glen  and  buys  the  wares  of  the  little 
men,  but  will  not  eat.  They  crush  the  fruit  against 
her  face  and  the  juice  flows  over  her  dimpled  cheeks 


256  Ebe  iRossettte. 

and  chin.  Then,  escaping,  she  hastens  back  to  Laura, 
who  kisses  the  juice  away,  thus  tasting  it  again.  This 
time  it  scorches  her  lips,  and  she  loathes  the  feast 
and  falls  down  in  agony.  When  she  awakes  the 
spell  is  broken  and  all  danger  is  past  for  her.  She 
lives  to  tell  her  children  years  after 

— "  how  her  sister  stood 
In  deadly  peril  to  do  her  good, 
And  win  the  fiery  antidote  : 
Then  joining  hands  to  little  hands 
Would  bid  them  cling  together, 
For  there  is  no  friend  like  a  sister, 
In  calm  or  stormy  weather, 
To  cheer  one  on  the  tedious  way, 
To  fetch  one  if  one  goes  astray, 
To  lift  one  if  one  totters  down, 
To  strengthen  whilst  one  stands. 

The  glory  of  the  poem  is  in  the  splendid  play  of 
fiery-coloured  imagery  constantly  interrupting  the 
plain  narrative  style.  It  opens  with  an  astounding 
fall  of  rich  tropical  fruits, 

Apples  and  quinces, 
Lemons  and  oranges, 
Plump,  unpecked  cherries, 
Melons  and  raspberries, 
Bloom-down-cheeked  peaches, 
Swart-headed  mulberries, 
Wild,  free-born  cranberries, 
Crab-apples,  dewberries, 
Pine-apples,  blackberries, 
Apricots,  strawberries; — 
AH  ripe  together 
In  summer  weather, — 
Morns  that  pass  by, 


Cbrietina  IRossetti:  1ber  poetry        257 

Fair  eves  that  fly  ; 
Come,  buy  ;  come,  buy  : 

Our  grapes  fresh  from  the  vine, 

Pomegranates  full  and  fine, 

Dates  and  sharp  bullaces, 

Rare  pears  and  greengages, 

Damsons  and  bilberries, 

Taste  them  and  try: 

Currants  and  gooseberries, 

Bright,  fire-like  barberries, 

Figs  to  fill  your  mouth, 

Citrons  from  the  South, 

Sweet  to  tongue  and  sound  to  eye; 

Come,  buy  ;  come,  buy. 

In  this  category  of  the  goblin's  song  what  suggest- 
ions do  we  not  get  of  hot  southern  orchards  and  the 
terraced  vineyards  of  Italy  !  And  in  the  descriptions 
of  the  two  girls  there  is  the  same  opulent  sense  of 
the  delicious  fairness  of  visible  things,  expressed  this 
time  in  lavish  metaphors  that  a  child  might  feel  in- 
deed, but  could  hardly  understand :  they  are  scat- 
tered over  the  plainer  fabric  of  the  piece  like  gems 
incrusting  pure,  translucent  glass.  After  the  gro- 
tesque procession  of  animal-faced  men  has  passed 
we  gain  a  sudden  flashing  glimpse  of  Laura  stretch- 
ing out  her  gleaming  neck, 

Like  a  rush-imbedded  swan, 
Like  a  lily  from  the  beck, 
Like  a  moonlit  poplar  branch, 
Like  a  vessel  at  the  launch 
When  its  last  restraint  is  gone. 

And  delicately  set  among  the  visions  of  the  fierce 
summer  day  is  the  exquisite  picture  of  the  two  girls 
asleep  as  Dante  Gabriel  drew  them  for  the  title-page : 


258  £be  IRossettis. 

Golden  head  by  golden  head, 
Like  two  pigeons  in  one  nest 
Folded  in  each  other's  wings, 
They  lay  down  in  their  curtained  bed: 
Like  two  blossoms  on  one  stem, 
Like  two  flakes  of  new-fallen  snow, 
Like  two  wands  of  ivory 
Tipped  with  gold  for  awful  kings. 
Moon  and  stars  gazed  in  at  them, 
Wind  sang  to  them  lullaby, 
Lumbering  owls  forebore  to  fly, 
Not  a  bat  flapped  to  and  fro 
Round  their  rest  : 

Cheek  to  cheek  and  breast  to  breast 
Locked  together  in  one  nest. 

Then,  following  the  rugged  passage  in  which 
Lizzie  is  mauled  by  the  angry  little  men,  comes  this 
image  of  the  fair  resisting  maiden  : 

White  and  golden  Lizzie  stood, 
Like  a  lily  in  a  flood, — 
Like  a  rock  of  blue-veined  stone 
Lashed  by  tides  obstreperously,— 
Like  a  beacon  left  alone 
In  a  hoary  roaring  sea, 
Sending  up  a  golden  fire, — 
Like  a  fruit-crowned  orange-tree 
White  with  blossoms  honey-sweet 
Sore  beset  by  wasp  and  bee, — 
Like  a  royal  virgin  town 
Topped  with  gilded  dome  and  spire 
Close  beleaguered  by  a  fleet 
Mad  to  tug  her  standard  down. 

This  poem  —  named  by  Dante  Gabriel,  and  dedi- 
cated to  Maria  Rossetti  in  the  original  manuscript  - 
emphasised  at  the  start  Christina's  place  among  the 
few  who  write  "  first-best  "  things.     Nothing  like  it 


Cbristina  IRossetti:  1ber  poetry        259 

preceded  it  and  nothing  of  precisely  the  same  flavour 
can  ever  follow  it. 

Among  the  "other  poems"  of  the  volume  are 
some  of  the  best  examples  of  Christina's  various 
styles.  In  nearly  all  of  them  we  get  the  characteristic 
note  of  a  melancholy  deep  but  not  languid,  and  a 
curious  interrogation  of  the  inmost  recesses  of  the 
human  spirit  that  haunts  the  imagination.  Of  what 
may  be  called  intellectual  curiosity  she  has  nothing, 
but  her  questioning  of  the  unseen  region  at  the  door 
of  which  the  intellect  stands  baffled  is  unceasing. 
She  never  doubts  but  she  always  wonders.  Again 
and  again  in  imagination  she  crosses  the  bridge  of 
death  and  explores  the  further  shore.  Her  ghosts 
come  back  with  familiar  forms,  familiar  sensations, 
and  familiar  words.  The  gruesome  little  At  Home 
vies  with  the  stanzas  of  the  Persian  pessimist  himself 
in  its  poignant  rendering  of  the  interest  felt  by  the 
dead  concerning  the  world  relinquished.  No  imagery 
could  be  so  pitilessly  terrible  as  its  homely  actuality, 
and  no  mist-enshrouded  ghost  of  the  literary  stage  is 
so  impressive  as  the  poor  spirit  standing  lonely  in  its 
old  place  among  the  feasting  friends. 

"  To-morrow,"  said  they,  strong  with  hope, 

And  dwelt  upon  the  pleasant  way  : 
"  To-morrow,"  cried  they,  one  and  all, 

While  no  one  spoke  of  yesterday. 
Their  life  stood  full  at  blessed  noon  ; 

I,  only  I,  had  passed  away  : 
"  To-morrow  and  to-day,"  they  cried  : 

I  was  of  yesterday. 


IRossettis. 

I  shivered  comfortless,  but  cast 

No  chill  across  the  table-cloth  ; 
I,  all  forgotten,  shivered,  sad 

To  stay,  and  yet  to  part  how  loath  : 
I  passed  from  the  familiar  room 

I  who  from  love  had  passed  away, 
Like  the  remembrance  of  a  guest 

That  tarrieth  but  a  day. 

The  preoccupation  with  the  moods  of  the  dead 
is  not  always  expressed  in  lamentation.  One  of  the 
best-known  lyrics  is  the  peaceful  one  beginning, 


When  I  am  dead,  my  dearest, 
Sing  no  sad  songs  for  me, 


but  it  must  be  granted  that  in  the  main  this  early 
volume,  after  we  leave  the  fantastic  market-place  of 
the  goblins,  is  essentially  a  sombre  one.  It  contains, 
however,  the  four  poems  one  or  another  of  which 
has  been  selected  by  her  brother,  Dante  Gabriel,  by 
her  most  instructed  critic,  by  Mr.  Swinburne,  and  by 
the  public,  as  representing  the  purest  essence  of  her 
genius.  These  are  The  Convent  Threshold,  An  Ap- 
ple-Gathering, Advent,  and  Uphill.  Beside  them 
for  singular  strength  and  technical  distinction  should 
be  placed  The  Three  Enemies  and  the  third  of  the  Old 
and  New  Year  Ditties.  The  former  won  the  suf- 
ferances of  her  most  adverse  critic,  a  writer  for  the 
Catholic  World.  After  condemning  the  greater  part 
of  the  volume  in  terms  of  contemptuous  disapproval 
he  greets  The  Three  Enemies  with  the  phrase, 
"  What  in  the  wide  realm  of  English  poetry  is 
more  beautiful  or  more  Catholic  than  this  ! "  The 


<£> 


THE  PRINCE'S  PROGRESS 

AND  OTHER  POEMS 
BT  CHRESTTMA.ROSSETTI 


The  long  hour^go  and  come  and_go 


MACMILLAN&CO.  1866 


TITLE-PAGE  TO  "  THE  PRINCE'S  PROGRESS." 


Cbristina  IRossetti:  Iber  poetry        261 

latter  is  peculiar  for  its  rhyme  endings,  the  twenty- 
six  lines  having  but  one  rhyme  among  them,  yet 
keeping  the  effect  of  dignity  and  variety.  The  ir- 
regular length  of  the  lines,  a  trick  of  the  Italian 
"canzone"  Mr.  Rossetti  reminds  us,  their  rapid 
dactylic  movement,  the  simplicity  of  the  whole 
scheme,  are  appalling  in  view  of  the  high  intention 
of  the  poem,  but  the  intention  is  fully  realised  though 
it  is  difficult  to  think  of  any  other  hands  through 
which  it  could  have  passed  triumphantly. 

In  1866  came  another  volume,  The  Prince's  Pro- 
gress, and  Other  Poems,  opening  with  another  long 
narrative  poem,  this  time  a  romantic  ballad,  ex- 
tremely unequal  in  the  merit  of  its  stanzas,  with 
touches  of  magical  sweetness  and  with  exquisite 
cadences,  but  without  the  robust  vitality  of  the 
earlier  fairy-story.  Some  one  has  found  in  the  de- 
scription of  the  waiting  princess  given  at  the  end  of 
the  poem  a  portrait  of  its  author  as  from  this  time 
on  she  grew  to  be.  Whatever  truth  there  is  in  the 
rather  fanciful  suggestion,  this  rendering  of  the  mood 
in  which  all  earthly  happenings  are  unimportant  is 
consummate  : 

We  never  heard  her  speak  in  haste  : 

Her  tones  were  sweet, 
And  modulated  just  so  much 

As  it  was  meet  : 

Her  heart  sat  silent  through  the  noise 

And  concourse  of  the  street. 
There  was  no  hurry  in  her  hands, 


262  £be  IRossettis. 

No  hurry  in  her  feet  ; 
There  was  no  bliss  drew  nigh  to  her, 

That  she  might  run  to  greet. 

» 

The  other  poems  in  this  second  volume  are  all 
inferior  to  the  finer  work  of  the  first,  but  the  curious 
Eve  is  a  very  remarkable  illustration  of  Christina's 
attitude  of  mind  toward  animals.  The  spectacle  of 
the  "  piteous  beasts  "  pausing  in  their  customary 
occupations  to  condole  with  Eve  on  the  death  of 
Abel  would  be  ridiculous  were  it  not  so  convincing. 
Bring  what  sceptical  spirit  you  may  to  the  scene, 
you  cannot  discredit  the  emotion  of  these  kneeling 
camels,  these  wistful  storks,  these  "kind  harts" 
weeping,  these  doves  cooing  desolation,  and  those 
who  have  known  the  sympathy  of  a  sympathetic 
animal  will  not  need  to  go  through  the  process  of 
conversion.  The  conceit  is  so  Rossettian  in  its  dar- 
ing simplicity  that  it  might  almost  stand  as  a  family 
poem,  representing  the  zoological  spirit  pervading 
that  quaint  community  of  kindred  souls  and  disparate 
minds. 

To  reach  the  perfect  blossom  of  Christina's  gift, 
we  must  pass  over  a  quantity  of  her  prose,  and  a 
book  of  children's  verses  much  admired  by  some  of 
her  critics,  to  the  collection  called  A  Pageant  and 
Other  Poems,  published  in  1881.  In  this  volume  oc- 
cur the  Monna  Innominata  sonnets,  the  "  sonnet  of 
sonnets"  their  author  calls  them,  fourteen  nearly 
perfect  examples  of  the  most  purely  artistic  form  of 
verse,  embodying  an  emotion  as  controlled  and 


Christina  IRossetti:  1ber  poetry        263 

sincere  as  the  emotion  of  the  lyrics  is  sometimes  per- 
fervid  and  youthful.  Because  they  express  love 
thwarted  and  not  realised,  and  the  repression  instead 
of  the  overflow  of  sentiment,  they  are  usually  placed 
second  to  Mrs.  Browning's  Sonnets  from  the  Portu- 
guese. At  least  there  would  seem  to  be  no  other 
reason  for  such  an  order  of  position.  In  technical  and 
spiritual  beauty  they  are  indisputably  far  above  the 
rare  achievement  of  the  happier  lover  and  lesser  poet. 
From  a  writer  of  Christina's  predilection  we  should 
have  expected  the  Shakespearian  sonnet  form, — the 
three  quatrains  with  the  couplet  at  the  end, — as  af- 
fording a  more  flexible  model  to  convey  a  greater 
suggestion  of  sweetness  and  melody,  just  as  we 
should  have  expected  the  utterance  to  be  more 
conspicuous  for  fervour  than  for  power  and  depth. 
In  contradicting  this  natural  inference  she  uncon- 
sciously shows  the  scope  of  her  extraordinary  char- 
acter. Her  sonnets,  and  these  sonnets  in  particular, 
are  her  most  subjective  work,  and  in  them  she  re- 
veals both  the  force  of  the  passionate  devotion  by 
which  she  is  constantly  inspired,  and  the  sovereignty 
she  attains  over  it.  She  also  reveals  her  instinct  for 
fitness  of  form  by  choosing  the  noblest  and  most 
balanced  intellectual  structure  to  convey  her  exalted 
emotion.  While  the  rhyme  endings  of  her  sonnets 
are  sometimes  irregular,  the  radical  and  essential 
arrangement  of  thought  and  design  is  maintained 
with  great  fidelity.  The  structure  in  the  main  is 
that  of  the  contemporary  type  of  English  sonnet  in 


264  Gbe  IRossettte. 

which  what  is  called  the  "  wave  form  "  is  conspicu- 
ous ;  in  which,  that  is,  the  emotions  and  the  melody 
rise  gradually  in  the  octave  and  fall  back  in  shorter 
beats  of  rhythm  and  with  a  contrasting  thought  in 
the  sestet.  The  purest  models  of  this  type,  like  the 
sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life,  emphasise  the  turning 
of  the  thought  and  of  the  metre  by  separating  the 
sestet  by  a  little  distance  from  the  octave.  Christina 
makes  no  such  division  nor  does  she  use  a  quicker 
metre  for  her  sestet  than  for  her  octave  ;  and  in  these 
respects  her  sonnet  resembles  the  Miltonian  model, 
in  which  a  continuous  thought  is  expressed  by  a 
continuity  of  form.  While  nearly  all  of  the  Monna 
Innominate  sonnets  show  two  contrasting  sides  of 
the  intellectual  conception,  and  the  sestet  forms  a 
kind  of  antiphonal  response  to  the  octave,  the  idea 
is  always  the  outcome  of  a  fixed  emotion,  a  mighty 
love  in  the  shadow  of  renunciation  in  which  the 
lighter  play  of  the  mind  has  no  part.  Hence  this 
general  continuity  of  the  form  is  appropriate  and 
gives  unity  and  dignity  to  the  two  aspects  of  the 
thought.  Take,  for  example,  the  ninth  sonnet : 

Thinking  of  you,  and  all  that  was,  and  all 
That  might  have  been  and  now  can  never  be, 
I  feel  your  honoured  excellence,  and  see 

Myself  unworthy  of  the  happier  call  : 

For  woe  is  me  who  walk  so  apt  to  fall, 
So  apt  to  shrink  afraid,  so  apt  to  flee, 
Apt  to  lie  down  and  die  (ah,  woe  is  me  ! ) 

Faithless  and  hopeless  turning  to  the  wall. 

And  yet  not  hopeless  quite  nor  faithless  quite, 

Because  not  loveless  :  love  may  toil  all  night, 


Cbristina  IRossetti:  Iber  poetry        265 

But  take  at  morning  :  wrestle  till  the  break 
Of  day,  but  then  wield  power  with  God  and  man  : — 
So  take  I  heart  of  grace  as  best  I  can, 

Ready  to  spend  and  be  spent  for  your  sake. 

If  there  were  a  sharp  division  here  between  the 
melancholy  cadence  of  the  first  eight  lines  and  the 
accruing  strength  of  the  last  six  we  should  altogether 
lose  the  fine,  slow  turn  of  the  feeling  from  despair  to 
courage  and  from  quiescence  to  action. 

The  diction  unlike  that  of  Dante  Gabriel's  sonnets, 
is  simple  to  severity.  Where  he  links  symbol  to 
symbol  in  an  ecstasy  of  elaboration,  Christina  aban- 
dons even  her  customary  tendency  to  decorative  use 
of  words  and  sets  her  thought  before  us  with  scarcely 
an  appeal  to  our  aesthetic  sensibilities  beyond  the 
appeal  made  by  the  superb  architecture  of  her  lines. 
The  metaphors  employed  are  grave  in  character  and 
invariably  harmonious  with  the  nobility  of  the  emo- 
tion depicted.  Herein  is  the  greatest  point  of  depart- 
ure from  the  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese.  We  could 
search  the  Monna  Innominate  series  from  its  begin- 
ning to  its  end  without  unearthing  a  passage  so  dis- 
concerting as  this  from  Mrs.  Browning  : 

Antidotes 

Of  medicated  music,  answering  for 
Mankind's  forlornest  uses  thou  canst  pour 
From  thence  into  their  ears, 

or  so  strained  as  this  one  : 

The  dancers  will  break  footing,  from  the  care 
Of  watching  up  thy  pregnant  lips  for  more. 


266 

And  if  we  miss  the  rush  of  emotion  that  certainly 
enlivens  Mrs.  Browning's  sonnets,  we  also  escape  a 
sense  of  hurry  and  confusion  that  is  felt  in  some  of 
them. 

Regarding  Christina's  series  as  a  whole  we  re- 
ceive an  impression,  rendered  possible  by  their  sad 
significance,  of  a  great  passion  swelling  to  its  height 
to  fall  back  in  an  ebbing  surge  "  to  the  deeps  of  Life's 
tumultuous  sea,"  the  "wave  form"  repeated  in  the 
construction  of  the  entire  conception.  This  impres- 
sion, produced  by  the  sequence  of  the  individual 
sonnets,  those  expressing  the  pure  enchantment  of 
love  upon  the  mind  and  heart  preceding  the  ones  in 
which  the  doom  of  unfulfilment  is  foreseen,  gives 
the  same  intellectual  pleasure  that  we  get  from  all 
the  stately  rhythms  of  nature,  and  so  far  from  seem- 
ing an  artifice  intensifies  the  effect  of  unpremeditated 
art.  It  is  not  too  much — it  is  not  really  enough — to 
say  that  the  love  poems  of  this  little  group,  consid- 
ered both  technically  and  emotionally,  combine 
more  faultlessly  the  great  qualities  of  passion  and 
spiritual  reticence,  than  any  other  love  poetry  of  the 
present  century. 

To  turn  back  for  a  moment  to  the  two  children's 
books,  Sing-Song  and  Speaking  Likenesses,  published 
in  1872  and  1874,  we  find  them  curiously  out  of 
touch  with  the  world  of  little  people  to  which  the 
Goblin  Market  certainly  appealed.  Sing-Song  is  a 
collection  of  short  poems,  some  of  them  only  quat- 
rains, written  for  children  of  an  age,  one  might  guess, 


Christina  IRossetti:  1ber  poetry        267 

ranging  from  two  to  three.  One  does  not  ask  for 
more  than  Mother  Goose  ditties  at  this  simple  time 
of  life  and  would  not  welcome  elaboration  if  it  were 
offered.  But  there  is  simplicity  and  simplicity.  It  is 
difficult  to  find  the  moment  antedating  the  birth  of 
romance  in  a  child's  mind.  Even  the  most  prosaic 
men  and  women  can  most  of  them  remember  a  na- 
tive fairyland  of  one  kind  or  another  in  which  they 
spent  a  little  time  before  the  painful  necessity  of 
growing  up  was  forced  upon  them,  and  during  this 
sojourn  they  knew  the  capacity  for  wonder  that  stays 
so  long  with  certain  childlike  temperaments,  that 
stayed  so  long  with  Christina's  own,  and  that  never 
left  her  brother,  Dante  Gabriel.  No  child  is  well 
worth  telling  stories  to,  moreover,  who  has  not 
transmigrated  into  some  other  inhabitant  of  the 
world  he  wonders  about,  to  explore  his  sensations 
and  compare  them  with  his  own.  In  his  extrospect- 
ive  zeal  he  "  pretends  "  to  be  a  pirate  or  a  soldier  or 
a  policeman,  or  anyone  likely  to  meet  with  stirring 
adventures.  Or  if  he  happens  to  be  a  girl  he  plays 
at  keeping  house  and  having  sick  children  and  a 
drunken  husband,  and  a  tea-party,  and  fifty  other 
excitements  of  a  more  purely  social  nature.  He  is 
not  usually  clever  enough  to  reverse  this  operation, 
and  play  that  his  most  sympathetic  companions,  his 
dogs  and  his  cats,  are  endowed  with  his  own  partic- 
ular faculties,  but  he  is  uniformly  delighted  to  have 
other  people  play  this  for  him.  Mr.  Kipling  is  good 
at  it,  and  so  was  Mr.  Stevenson,  and  so  has  many  a 


268  Gbe  IRossettte. 

humbler  writer  proved  himself.  But  Christina,  who 
spent  her  quaint  childhood  in  a  very  wonderland  of 
imaginations,  fails  to  unlock  its  door  for  the  children 
to  whom  she  writes  so  lovingly.  Compare  the  little 
poem  from  A  Child's  Garden  of  Verses,  beginning 

My  bed  is  like  a  little  boat  ; 
Nurse  helps  me  in  when  I  embark  ; 

with  one  of  Christina's  boating  fancies,  such  as 

Ferry  me  across  the  water, 

Do,  boatman,  do  ; 
If  you  've  a  penny  in  your  purse 

I  '11  ferry  you  ; 

to  realise  the  difference  between  writing  for  children 
and  writing  at  them.  The  little  verses  of  Sing-Song 
are  pleasant  and  amiable,  and  point  little  morals  in 
an  unobtrusive  way,  as  when  a  kindly  dispositioned 
child  observes 

My  clothes  are  soft  and  warm 

Fold  upon  fold, 
But  I  'm  so  sorry  for  the  poor 

Out  in  the  cold. 

Not  one  of  them,  however,  suggests  the  true  deli- 
cious experiences  of  a  child's  first  gay  plunge  into 
the  capital  game  of  life  on  that  glorious  playground 
the  name  of  which  is  youth. 

The  prose  stories  for  children  in  Speaking  Like- 
nesses are  a  trifle  better  in  this  respect.  In  the  words 
of  one  of  their  young  readers  they  are  decidedly 
"goody-goody,"  but  quaint  descriptions  help  along 
the  moral,  and  the  agreeable  puppies,  intelligent 


Christina  IRossetti:  1ber  ipoetrp.        269 

frogs,  and  helpful  moles,  add  a  degree  of  piquancy 
to  the  very  simple  tales.  Just  why  there  was  not 
more  put  into  them  of  the  fascination  which  animals 
unmistakably  had  for  Christina,  however,  is  a  ques- 
tion. Perhaps  she  was  more  at  ease  in  the  company 
of  children  of  her  own  age  or  older,  as  people  who 
are  trying  very  hard  to  behave  their  best  often  are, 
but  it  is  certainly  a  pity  that  her  sweet,  gracious, 
playful  temperament  should  not  have  found  its 
chance  to  forget  the  stress  of  restraint  and  aspiration 
in  the  most  inspiriting  amusements  of  that  world 
"so  full  of  a  number  of  things,"  which  something 
very  like  shyness  seems  to  have  shut  her  out  of.1 

To  write  of  Christina's  poetry  without  specific 
reference  to  her  devotional  poems  would  be  to 

1  It  is  fair,  perhaps,  to  quote  in  connection  with  this  expression  of  individual 
judgment  the  diametrically  opposite  opinion  of  a  capable  writer  in  the  London 
Quarterly  Review.  He  says  : 

"  Children,  we  must  remember,  especially  very  small  children,  play  a  great  part 
in  the  world  of  Miss  Rossetti's  poetry.  They  have,  indeed,  a  book  all  to  themselves, 
one  of  the  loveliest  books  in  the  language,  comparable  with  nothing  that  has  gone 
before  it,  and  touched,  in  its  own  realm,  by  nothing  before  it  or  since,  save  only  the 
divinest  of  the  Songs  of  Innocence.  Sing-Song :  A  Nursery  Rhyme-Book,  illustrated 
with  pictures  almost  equal  to  the  poems,  by  Arthur  Hughes,  makes  a  very  little 
book  for  all  its  hundred  and  twenty  poems  of  pictures  ;  but  its  covers  contain  a 
lyric  treasure  such  as  few  books,  small  or  great,  can  boast  of.  It  used  to  be  thought 
a  slight  and  unimportant  thing  to  have  written  children's  songs  or  children's  stories  : 
we  are  getting  beyond  that  delusion  and  beginning  to  see  that  children's  art  is  a 
vastly  important  matter,  that  it  is  by  no  means  easy  work  to  do,  and  that  it  can  be 
done  as  well  from  a  purely  artistic  point  of  view,  as  the  art  which  appeals  to  grown- 
up people.  Who  can  tell  how  many  times  we  should  have  to  multiply  the  imagin- 
ation shown  in  the  portentous  She,  to  find  the  imagination  required  for  a  single 
chapter  of  The  Cuckoo  Clock :  and  who  would  not  give  twenty  Epics  of  Hades  for 
the  little  volume  of  Sing-Song  ?  Such  poetry  evades  analysis  ;  we  could  as  easily 
dissect  a  butterfly's  wing.  It  is  simply  a  child's  mood,  a  child's  fancies  and  ideas 
set  to  song  ;  with  grave  touches  and  tones  of  sudden  seriousness  here  and  there 
among  the  blithe  April  weather  of  its  little  world,  like  the  voice  of  a  wise  elder  who 
is  still  a  child  at  heart,  and  among  children." 


270  Gbe  iRos0etti0. 

neglect  not  the  essence  of  her  genius  as  the  larger 
number  of  her  readers  would  doubtless  have  us  be- 
lieve, but  certainly  one  of  its  most  curious  and  inter- 
esting phenomena.  We  hear  that  her  first  formulated 
ambition  was  to  write  a  really  fine  hymn.  By  the 
time  she  reached  the  end  of  her  life  by  far  the  greater 
proportion  of  her  verse  was  religious.  She  has  been 
compared  to  Herbert  and  to  Vaughn  and  to  Keble, 
whom  she  disliked,  and  even  to  Crashaw,  whom 
she  did  not  remotely  resemble.  The  two  great  qual- 
ities of  her  religious  poems  are  those  that  also  dis- 
tinguish her  most  purely  secular  songs, — sincerity 
and  feivour.  The  point  of  separation  between  her 
devout  religious  poetry  and  that  of  the  writers 
named  above  is  her  imaginative  grasp  of  human  ex- 
perience. No  reclaimed  sinner  who  has  tasted  the 
bitter  and  the  sweet  of  self-indulgence  could  more 
liberally  appraise  its  pleasures. 

We  feel  this  not  so  much  from  any  categorical 
statement  of  the  world's  attractions,  but  from  the 
wrench  of  parting  with  that  worthless  world,  a 
wrench  she  is  too  honest  ever  to  ignore. 

My  fellow-pilgrims  pass  me  and  attain 
That  hidden  mansion  of  perpetual  peace, 

Where  keen  desire  and  hope  dwell  free  from  pain  : 
That  gate  stands  open  of  perennial  ease  ; 

I  view  the  glory  till  I  partly  long, 
Yet  lack  the  fire  of  love  which  quickens  these, 

O,  passing  Angel,  speed  me  with  a  song, 
A  melody  of  heaven  to  reach  my  heart 

And  rouse  me  to  the  race  and  make  me  strong  ; 
Till  in  such  music  I  take  up  my  part. 


Cbristina  IRossetti:  1ber  poetry        271 

In  the  comparatively  few  poems  that  ring  with 
such  music  as  she  here  prays  to  make,  however,  we 
miss  the  note  that  sets  her  poetry  in  the  place  it  occu- 
pies with  those  who  value  the  sum  of  her  rich,  ten- 
der, appealing,  and  courageous  personality  far  above 
any  one  detached  quality,  even  that  of  saintliness. 
The  passage  the  spirit  of  which  gives  to  the  poem 
called  A  Martyr  its  chief  strength  and  its  unique 
beauty  is  that  in  which  she  speaks  to  the  one  she  is 
leaving  from  a  heart  "  unsatisfied  and  young," 

Alas,  alas,  mine  earthly  love,  alas, 

For  whom  I  thought  to  don  the  garments  white 

And  white  wreath  of  a  bride,  this  rugged  pass 
Hath  utterly  divorced  me  from  thy  care  ; 
Yea,  I  am  to  thee  as  a  shattered  glass 

Worthless  with  no^more  beauty  lodging  there, 
Abhorred  lest  I  involve  thee  in  my  doom  : 
For  sweet  are  sunshine  and  this  upper  air, 

And  life  and  youth  are  sweet,  and  give  us  room 
For  all  most  sweetest  sweetnesses  we  taste  : 
Dear,  what  hast  thou  in  common  with  a  tomb  ? 

It  was,  after  all,  what  she  self-reproachingly  calls 

The  foolishest  fond  folly  of  a  heart 
That  hankers  after  Heaven,  but  clings  to  earth  ; 

which  gave  her  the  great  distinction  she  has  won  as 
a  religious  poet  and  the  power  to  appeal  to  an  audi- 
ence ordinarily  untouched  by  religious  poetry.  In 
the  commemorative  service  held  in  the  church  she 
had  been  accustomed  to  attend,  when  the  reredos 
painted  by  Burne-Jones  was  placed  there  to  her 
memory,  the  venerable  Bishop  of  Durham  told  the 


272  Gbe  IRossettis. 

large  concourse  of  people  assembled  in  her  honour 
that  the  dedication  of  her  poetical  genius  to  the  serv- 
ice of  God  had  been  the  most  complete  this  century 
had  known.  And  this  was  true,  but  not  perhaps 
quite  in  the  sense  the  Bishop  meant  it,  for  he  went 
on  to  say  that  the  passionate  and  sensuous  quality 
of  her  early  secular  verse  was  merely  the  apprentice- 
ship and  basis  of  her  production  as  an  artist.  The 
judgment  of  a  recent  writer  in  the  Quarterly  Review 
comes  much  nearer  to  plucking  out  the  heart  of  the 
truly  baffling  mystery  of  her  devotional  poetry. 

"One  is  tempted,"  he  says,  "to  advance  the 
seeming  paradox  that  it  is  in  her  least  personal 
poems,  those  in  which  symbolism  and  allegory  pre- 
dominate, that  we  get  the  truest  presentment  of  her 
personality.  For  the  purely  devotional  writings, 
outcome  as  they  are  of  an  elementary  part  of  her  na- 
ture, are  to  a  great  extent  the  expression  of  that  one 
part  only,  and  lack  the  peculiar  quality  which  is  the 
hallmark  of  her  veritable  self.  They  are  poetical,  but 
the  poetry  is  less  inevitable  in  them  than  the  religious 
feeling ;  the  soul  of  the  poet  is  dominated  by  the 
heart  of  the  saint.  The  statement  again  sounds  par- 
adoxical, inasmuch  as  the  soul  is  generally  credited 
with  qualities  more  spiritual  than  those  assigned  to 
the  heart :  but  the  spirit  of  Christina  Rossetti  had 
a  wider  vision,  understanding,  and  sympathy  than 
could  be  contained  within  the  limits  of  a  definite  re- 
ligious feeling  or  a  conscious  creed  ;  and  the  poet's 
perception,  apprehending  intuitively  the  spiritual 


Cbristina  IRossetti :  1bcr  poetry.        273 

element  and  import  in  much  not  commonly  associ- 
ated with  religion,  was  more  inherently  part  of  herself 
than  the  devotional  consciousness  which  both  ani- 
mated and  controlled  her  heart." 

We  can  at  least  say  without  doing  violence  to  the 
purity  of  her  exalted  and  exalting  nature  that  her 
poetry  served  God  most  fully  when  it  gave  fullest 
expression  to  her  deep  love  of  all  good  things  earthly 
or  divine.  Love  that  preserved  the  lesser  in  the 
greater  was,  we  repeat,  what  sh,e  longed  for  most, 
if  we  read  her  poetry  aright. 

Many  have  sung  of  love  a  root  of  bane 

While  to  my  mind  a  root  of  balm  it  is, 

For  love  at  length  breeds  love  ;  sufficient  bliss 
For  life  and  death  and  rising  up  again. 
Surely  when  light  of  Heaven  makes  all  things  plain, 

Love  will  grow  plain  with  all  its  mysteries  ; 

Nor  shall  we  need  to  fetch  from  over  seas 
Wisdom  or  wealth  or  pleasure  safe  from  pain. 
Love  in  our  borders,  love  within  our  heart, 

Love  all  in  all,  we  then  shall  bide  at  rest, 

Ending  forever  life's  unending  quest, 

Ended  for  ever  effort,  change  and  fear  ; 
Love  all  in  all ;  no  more  that  better  part 

Purchased,  but  at  the  cost  of  all  things  here. 

Mr.  Watts-Dunton  has  said  that  in  her  brother 
Gabriel  a  mystic  and  sensuous  temper  struggled  with 
the  asceticism  of  early  Christian  art  until  the  sensu- 
ous nature  gained  the  mastery  and  asceticism  was 
eliminated  while  mysticism  remained.  In  her  much 
the  same  struggle  took  place,  but  asceticism  gained 
ground  and  all  that  was  opposed  to  it  gradually 
passed  out  of  sight. 


* 

274  £be  IRossettis. 

As  she  advanced  in  years  prose  took  the  place  of 
poetry  with  her,  and  her  prose  pitilessly  betrays 
every  defect  of  her  style  and  every  limitation  of  her 
mind.  To  the  general  reader  it  is  incurably  dull,  al- 
though great  numbers  of  those  who  lean  upon  de- 
votional books  have  found  in  its  humility  of  spirit 
and  unassuming  holiness  of  intention, — precisely  the 
qualities  to  make  it  most  acceptable.  The  Face  of  the 
Deep,  published  in  1892  by  the  Society  for  Promoting 
Christian  Knowledge,  is  her  last  accomplishment, 
and  is  a  volume  of  over  five  hundred  and  fifty  pages, 
to  the  making  of  which  she  took  between  two  and 
three  years.  It  is  in  the  form  of  a  commentary  on 
the  Apocalypse,  written  chiefly  in  a  didactic  style 
with  garrulous  reflections.  Lyrics  of  more  or  less 
merit  are  scattered  up  and  down  it  and  relieve  to 
some  extent  the  commonplace  effect,  but  the  indi- 
vidual charm,  the  free  movement  and  leaping  imag- 
ination of  Christina  the  poet  is  hopelessly  forfeited. 
The  Christian  cry  of  entreaty  and  adoration  that 
rings  with  so  melodious  a  sound  in  the  devotional 
poems  of  her  best  type  has  become  the  conventional 
intonation  of  an  uninspired  though  devout  worshipper. 
In  her  sweet  capricious  metres  we  are  frequently  re- 
minded of  her  own  suggestive  lines : 

Without,  within  me,  music  seemed  to  be  : 
Something  not  music,  yet  most  musical, 
Silence  and  sound  in  heavenly  harmony, 

but  her  incongruous  prose  seems  to  have  forgotten 
the  name  of  harmony.     It  is,  indeed,  to  paraphrase 


Cbristina  TRossetti:  1bcr  poetry        275 

Lowell's  definition  of  Dryden,  "prose  with  a  kind  of 
/Eolian  attachment."  There  are  passages  here  and 
there  to  persuade  the  reader  of  the  author's  identity 
with  the  poet  of  Confluents  and  An  Apple-Gathering, 
but  it  lacks  sadly  enough  the  fine  literary  sense  by 
which  prose  is  made  at  once  plastic  to  its  meaning, 
unhackneyed,  and  beautiful.  Perhaps  it  was  only 
the  kind  of  failure  sure  to  result  when  a  nature  of 
strong  idiosyncrasy  attempts  to  break  its  own  natural 
spirit  and  part  company  with  itself.  In  the  light  of 
her  literary  biography  none  of  her  poems  reads  more 
significantly  than  Who  Shall  Deliver  Me  : 

God  harden  me  against  myself, 
This  coward  with  pathetic  voice 
Who  craves  for  ease  and  rest  and  joys. 

Myself,  arch-traitor  to  myself  : 

My  hollowest  friend,  my  deadliest  foe, 
My  clog  whatever  road  I  go. 

Yet  One  there  is  can  curb  myself, 
Can  roll  the  strangling  load  from  me, 
Break  off  the  yoke  and  set  me  free. 


LIST  OF  THE  MORE  IMPORTANT  WRITINGS 

OF  DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI. 

Arranged  in  chronological  sequence.  The  dates  indicate  the 
approximate  time  of  composition  without  reference  to  the 
time  of  publication.  The  list  is  compiled  chiefly  from 
the  one  given  by  Mr.  William  Rossetti  in  his  book  :  Dante 
Gabriel  Rossetti  as  Designer  and  Writer,  but  has  been 
somewhat  extended. 

1843.         Sorrentino.     (Prose,}     Unfinished  and  unpublished. 

1843.         Sir  Hugh  the  Heron.     (Prose.}     Privately  printed. 

1844?        Burger's  Lenore.     (Translation.} 

1845.  Corsican  Ballad  from  Merimee's  Colomba.  (Transla- 
tion.} 

1845  ?        To  Mary  in  Summer. 

1845-6.      The  Niebelungenlied.     Unfinished. 

1846?        Diary  by  Rossetti.     (Prose.}     Unpublished. 

1846-7  ?  Henry  the  Leper.  Translation  from  Der  Arme  Hein- 
rich. 

1846-81  ?  Collected  Works. 

1847  ?        Two  Songs.     (Translations  from  Victor  Hugo.} 

1847  ?        The  Choice.  , 

1847-8.      Dante's  Vita  Nuova.  (Prose  and  Poetry.}    Translation. 

1847-9.      The  Early  Italian  Poets.     (Translations.} 

1847-9.  Dante  and  His  Circle.  (Prose  and  Poetry.}  Transla- 
tions. 

1847-60?  The  Bride's  Prelude,  or  Bride-Chamber  Talk.  Unfin- 
ished. 

1847-69.    The  Portrait. 

277 


278 


IRoseettis. 


1847-8?  Capitolo  :       A.    M.    Salirni    to    Francesco    Ridi,    16- 

(Translation.) 

1847-69.  The  Blessed  Damozel. 

1847-69.  My  Sister's  Sleep. 

1 847-70.  Poems. 

1847-81.  The  House  of  Life. 

1847-81.  Ballads  and  Sonnets. 

1847-82?  The  Dutchman's  Pipe.     Unpublished. 

1848?  Autumn  Song. 

1848?  At  the  Sunrise  in  1848. 

1848-9.  The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin.     Two  Sonnets. 

1848-9?  On  Refusal  of  Aid  between  Nations. 

1 848-69  ?  The  Card-dealer. 

1848-70.  St.  Agnes  of  Intercession.     (Prose.)     Unfinished. 

1849.  London  to  Folkestone. 

"  Boulogne  to  Amiens  and  Paris. 

"  The  Staircase  of  Notre  Dame,  Paris. 

"  On  the  Place  de  la  Bastille. 

"  For  a  Venetian  Pastoral  by  Giorgione. 

"  On  the  Louvre  Gallery. 

"  On  a  Cancan  at  the  Salle  Valentino. 

"  On  a  Last  Visit  to  the  Louvre. 

"  Last  Sonnets  in  Paris.     Three. 

"  For  Ruggiero  and  Angelica,  by  Ingres.      Two  Sonnets. 

"  From  Paris  to  Brussels. 

"  L'  Envoi. 

"  Vox  Ecclesiae  Vox  Christi. 

"  On  the  Road  to  Waterloo. 
The  Field  of  Waterloo. 

"  Return  to  Brussels. 

"  Near  Brussels, —  A  Half-way  Pause. 

"  Between  Ghent  and  Bruges. 

"  Antwerp  and  Bruges  (or  The  Carillon). 

"  Hand  and  Soul.     (Prose.) 

"?  Ave. 

"?  A  Song  and  Music. 

1849-52  ?  Dante  at  Verona. 

1849-55  ?  The  Sea  Limits  (or  Boulogne  Cliffs). 

1850.  The  Mirror. 

1850  ?  A  Last  Confession. 


Xtet  of  tbe  flfeore  Important  HXHritings.   279 

1850  ?  A  Young  Fir  Wood. 

1850-8  ?  Jenny. 

185 1.  Poole's  Picture  :  The  Goths  in  Italy.     (Prose  criticism.) 

1851.  During  Music. 

1851.  Exhibition  of  Sketches  and  Drawings.      (Prose  criti- 
cism.) 

1851.  Wellington's  Funeral. 
1851-6.  The  Burden  of  Nineveh. 

1852.  The  Modern  Pictures  of  All  Nations,  Lichfield  House. 

(Prose  criticism.) 

1852.  The  Church  Porches.      Two  Sonnets.     (The   second 

has  been  excluded  from  the  collected  works,  but 
may  be  found  in  The  Century  Magazine,  Sept., 
1882.) 
1852?        The  Staff  and  Scrip. 

1853.  Sonnet   on   McCracken :      Parody   from    Tennyson's 

Kraken. 
1853-80?  Sister  Helen. 

1854  ?        Beauty  and  the  Bird  (or  The  Bullfinch). 
1854?        English  May. 

1855  ?        The  Passover  in  the  Holy  Family. 

1856.  Madox  Brown's  Pictures  in  Liverpool.  (Prose  criticism.) 

1857.  Madox  Brown — Notice  in  Men  of  the  Time.     (Prose.) 
1857  ?        On  a  Mulberry-tree  Planted  by  Shakespeare. 

1857  ?        Known  in  Vain. 

1858  ?        A  New  Year's  Burden. 
1858?        Lost  Days. 

1858?        Vain  Virtues. 

1859.         On  the  French  Liberation  of  Italy.     Privately  printed. 

1859  ?        Love's  Nocturn. 

1859  ?  Mary  Magdalene  at  the  Door  of  Simon  the  Pharisee. 

1859?  A  Little  While. 

1859  ?  The  Song  of  the  Bower. 

1860?  Inclusiveness. 

1 86 1  ?  Cassandra. 

1862-80.  Life  of  William  Blake,  Contributions  to.     (Prose.) 

1865  ?  Body's  Beauty  (or  Lady  Lilith). 

1865  ?  Venus  Verticordia. 

1866.  Soul's  Beauty  (or  Sybilla  Palmifera). 

1867.  Aspecta  Medusa. 


280  £be  IRoesettis. 

1868?  Nuptial  Sleep. 

1868?  The  Love-moon. 

1869.  Eden  Bower. 

1869.  The  Glen. 

1869:  Troy  Town. 

1869.  The  Stream's  Secret. 

1869.  The  Orchard-pit.     Unfinished. 
1869?  Willow-wood. 

1869?  Broken  Music. 

1869?  Stillborn  Love. 

1869?  The  One  Hope. 

1869?  Newborn  Death. 

1870.  Ebenezer  Jones — Notice  in  Notes  and  Queries.   (Prose.) 

1871.  Down  Stream  (or  The  River's  Record). 
1871.  Barcarola. 

1871.  Cloud  Confines. 

1871.  Rose  Mary. 

1871.  Sunset  Wings. 

1871.  The  Stealthy  School  of  Criticism.     (Prose.) 

1871.  Ballad  on  the  Fleshly  School  of  Poetry.     Unpublished. 

1871.  Hake's  Madeline,  and  other  Poems.    (Prose  criticism.} 

1871.  Letter  to  Robert  Buchanan.     (Prose.)     Unpublished. 

1871.  Maclise's  Character-portraits.     (Prose.) 
1871  ?  Three  Shadows. 

1871  ?  Love  and  Hope. 

1871  ?  Cloud  and  Wind. 

1872.  Proserpina. 

1873.  Hake's  Parables  and  Tales.     (Prose  criticism.) 

1873.  Notice  of  Gabriele   Rossetti  in  Maunders  Treasury. 
(Prose.) 

1873.  Spring. 

1874.  Winter. 

1874.  Oliver  Madox  Brown.     Sonnet. 

1874  ?  The  Heart  of  the  Night. 

1874  ?  Memorial  Thresholds. 

1875-81.  Samuel  Palmer,  Prose  Observations  on. 

1877.  Astarte  Syriaca. 

1877.  Letter  in  the  Times  (as  to  non-exhibition  of  pictures). 

(Prose.) 

1878.  A  Vision  of  Fiammetta. 


Xist  of  tbe  fIDore  "(Important  THUritings.   281 

1878.  To  Philip  Bourke  Marston.     Sonnet. 

1878.  Cyprus.     Sonnet.     Unpublished. 

1880.  Sonnet  on  the  Sonnet. 

1880.  John  Keats.     Sonnet. 

1880.  The  White  Ship. 

1880.  William  Blake.     Sonne 

1880.  Thomas  Chatterton.     Sonnet. 

1880.  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge.     Sonnet. 

1880.  Pride  of  Youth. 
1880-1.  The  King's  Tragedy. 

1 88 1.  Tiber,  Nile,  and  Thames. 
1 88 1.  Michelangelo's  Kiss. 

1 88 1.         Czar  Alexander  the  Second. 

1 88 1.  True  Woman. 

1882.  The  Sphinx.     Two  Sonnets. 

VOLUMES  OF  PUBLISHED  WORKS,  WITH  DATES  OF  PUBLICATION. 

1843.         Sir  Hugh  the  Heron.     London.     Privately  printed. 
1861.         The  Early  Italian  Poets  from  Ciullo  d'Alcamo  to  Dante 

Alighieri  (i  100-1200-1300)  in  the  Original  Metres. 

Together  with  Dante's  Vita  Nuova. 
1870.         Poems.     Two  Editions.     London. 
1874.         Dante  and  his  Circle,  with  the  Italian  Poets  preceding 

him  (1100-1200-1300).     A  Collection  of  Lyrics, 

edited  and  translated    in    the    original   metres. 

Revised  and  rearranged  edition. 
1881.         Poems.     New  Edition.     London. 

1 88 1.  Ballads  and  Sonnets.     London. 

1882.  Ballads  and  Sonnets.     Boston  Edition. 
1882.         Ballads  and  Sonnets.     Tauchnitz  Edition. 

1882.         Poems  by  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.     Boston  (U.  S.). 
1886.         The  Collected  Works  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.     With 

Preface  and  Notes  by  William  Rossetti.      2  vols. 
1898.         The  Poetical  Works  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.     Edited, 

with  Preface  by  W.  M.  Rossetti.     i  vol. 
1898-1900.     The    Siddal    Edition   of   Dante   Gabriel   Rossetti's 

Works. 


CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI'S  POEMS. 

Arranged  chronologically,  as  published  separately,  with  dates 
and  names  of  periodicals  in  which  they  appeared. 

(Compiled  from  the  List  of  J.  P.  Anderson,  British  Museum, 
given  in  Mackenzie's  Life  of  Christina  Rossetti.) 

Death's  Chill  Between.     Athenaeum.     Oct.  14,  1848. 

Heart's  Chill  Between.     Alhenceum.     Oct.  21,  1848. 

Dream  Land.     The  Germ.    Jan.,  1850. 

An  End.     The  Germ.    Jan.,  1850. 

A  Pause  of  Thought.     The  Germ.     Feb.,  1850. 

Song.     The  Germ.     Feb.,  1850. 

A  Testimony.     The  Germ.     Feb.,  1850. 

Repining.     The  Germ.     Mar.,  1850. 

Sweet  Death.     The  Germ.     Mar.,  1850. 

Versi.     (Italian.)    Printed  in  The  Bouquet  Culled  from  Marylebone 

Gardens.    June,  1851,  to  Jan.,  1852. 
L'Incognita.     (Italian.)     Printed   in    The  Bouquet  Culled  from 

Marylebone  Gardens.    June,  1851,  to  Jan.,  1852. 
Corrispondenza   Famigliare.     (Italian.)     Printed  in  The  Bouquet 

Culled  from  Marylebone  Gardens.    Jan.  to  July,  1852  ;  July 

to  December,  1852. 
"Behold  I  Stand   at  the   Door  and   Knock."      Aiken's    Year. 

1852-4. 

The  Lost  Titian.     (Prose.)     The  Crayon.     New  York,  1856. 
Maude  Clare.     Once  A  Week.     Nov.  5,  1859. 
Up-Hill.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     Feb.,  1861. 
A  Birthday.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     April,  1861. 
An  Apple-Gathering.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     Aug.,  1861. 
Light  Love.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     Feb.,  1863. 

282 


Cbristina  IRossetti's  poeim  283 

The  Bourne.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     March,  1863. 

The  Fairy  Prince  who  Arrived  too  Late.    Macmillan's  Magazine. 

May,  1863. 

A  Bird's-Eye  View.     Macmillan's  Magazine.    July,  1863. 
The  Queen  of  Hearts.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     Oct.,  1863. 
One  Day.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     Dec.,  1863. 
Conference  between  Christ,  The  Saints,  and  The  Soul.      Lyra 

Eucharistica.    1863.    (Reprinted  as  "  I  Will  Lift  up  Mine  Eyes 

unto  the  Hills.") 
A   Royal    Princess.      Printed   in   An   Offering  to   Lancashire. 

1863. 

Dream-Love.     Printed  in  A  Welcome.      1863. 
The  Offering  of  the  New  Law,  The  One  Oblation  Once  Offered. 

Lyra  Eucharistica.     1863. 

Articles  on  Italian  Writers  and  Other  Celebrities.     (Prose.)     Im- 
perial Dictionary  of  Biography.     1857-63. 
Come  unto  Me.     Lyra  Eucharistica,  2nd  Edition.    1864. 
Sit  Down  in  the  Lowest  Room.    Macmillan's  Magazine.    March, 

1864. 

My  Friend.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     December,  1864. 
Jesus,  do  I  Love  Thee.     Lyra  Eucharistica,  2nd  Edition.     1864. 
I  Know  You  Not.     Lyra  Messianica.     1864. 
Before  the  Paling  of  the  Stars.     Lyra  Messianica.     1864. 
Good  Friday.     Lyra  Messianica.     1864. 
Easter  Even.     Lyra  Messianica.     1864. 
Within  the  Veil.     Lyra  Messianica.     1865. 
Paradise  in  a  Symbol.     Lyra  Messianica.     1865. 
Paradise  in  a  Dream.     Lyra  Messianica.     1865. 
After  this  the  Judgment.     Lyra  Myslica.     1865. 
Spring  Fancies.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     April,  1865. 
Last  Night.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     May,  1865. 
Martyr's  Song.     Lyra  Mystica.     1865. 
Amor  Mundi.     The  Shilling  Magazine.     1865. 
Hero  :  A  Metamorphosis.     (Prose.)     The  Argosy.    Jan.,  1866. 
Who  Shall  Deliver  Me?     The  Argosy.    Feb.,  1866. 
If.     The  Argosy.     March,  1866. 
Consider.     Macmillan's  Magazine.    Jan.,  1866. 
Helen  Gray.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     March,  1866. 
By  the   Waters    of    Babylon.     Macmillan's   Magazine.     Oct., 

1866. 


284  Gbe  IRoseettis. 

Seasons.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     Dec.,  1866. 

The  Waves  of  this  Troublesome  World  :  a  Tale  of  Hastings  Ten 
Years  Ago.  (Prose.)  The  Churchman's  Shilling  Magazine. 
1867. 

Some  Pros  and  Cons  about  Pews.  (Prose.)  The  Churchman's 
Shilling  Magazine.  1867. 

Dante,  an  English  Classic.  (Prose  Essay.)  The  Churchman's 
Shilling  Magazine.  1867. 

A  Safe  Investment.  (Prose  Story.)  The  Churchman's  Shilling 
Magazine.  1867. 

Mother  Country.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     March,  1868. 

A  Smile  and  a  Sigh.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     May,  1868. 

Dead  Hope.     Macmillan's  Magazine.    May,  1868. 

Twilight  Night.     The  Argosy.    Jan.,  1868. 

Autumn  Violets.     Macmillan's  Magazine.    Nov.,  1868. 

They  Desire  a  Better  Country.  Macmillan's  Magazine.  March, 
1869. 

A  Christmas  Carol.     Scribner's  Monthly.    Jan.,  1872. 

Days  of  Vanity.     Scribner's  Monthly.    Nov.,  1872. 

A  Bird  Song.     Scribner's  Monthly.    Jan.,  1873. 

Two  Sonnets  :  i.  Venus's  Looking-Glass  ;  2.  Love  Lies  Bleed- 
ing. The  Argosy.  Jan.,  1873. 

A  Dirge.     The  Argosy.    Jan.,  1874. 

An  English  Drawing-Room  (or  Enrica).     Picture  Posies.     1874. 

By  the  Sea.     Picture  Posies.     1874. 

A  Bride  Song.     The  Argosy.    Jan.,  1875. 

Mirrors  of  Life  and  Death.     Athenceum.     March  17,  1877. 

An  October  Garden.     Athenceum.     Oct.  27,  1877. 

Yet  a  Little  While.     Dublin  University  Magazine.     1878. 

Husband  and  Wife.     A  Masque  of  Poets.     1878. 

A  Harmony  on  First  Corinthians.     New  and  Old.     Feb.,  1879. 

Thou  Art  the  Same,  and  Thy  Years  shall  not  Fail.  The  Child- 
ren's Hymn  Book.  1881. 

Resurgam.     Athenceum.    Jan.  28,  1882. 

Birchington  Churchyard.     Athenceum.    April  28,  1882. 

To-day's  Burden.     Sonnets  of  Three  Centuries.     1882. 

True  in  the  Main.  Two  sketches  (Prose).  Dawn  of  Day.  May 
i,  1882  ;  June  i,  1882. 

Michael  F.  M.  Rossetti.     Athenceum.     Feb.  17,  1883. 

A  Wintry  Sonnet.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     April,  1883. 


Cbristina  IRossetti's  poems.  285 

Dante  :    The  Poet  Illustrated  out  of  the  Poem.     (Prose.)     The 
Century.     Feb.,  1884. 

One  Seaside  Grave.      The  Century.    May,  1884. 

A  Christmas  Carol.     Century  Guild  Hobby  Horse.     1887. 

A  Hope  Carol.     Century  Guild  Hobby  Horse.     1888. 

There  is  a  Budding  Morrow  in  Midnight.     Century  Guild  Hobby 
Horse.     \  889. 

Cardinal  Newman.     Athenaeum.    Aug.  16,  1890. 

An  Echo  from  Willowwood.     Magazine  of  Art.     Sept.,  1890. 

Yea,  I  Have  a  Goodly  Heritage.     Alalanta.     Oct.,  1890. 

A  Death  of  a  First-Born.    Literary  Opinion.    Jan.  and  Feb.,  1892. 

Faint  yet  Pursuing.     Literary  Opinion.     1892. 

The  House  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti.     (Prose.)     Literary  Opin- 
ion.    1 892. 

The  Way  of  the  World.     Magazine  of  Art.    July,  1894. 
Ash  Wednesday. 
Lent.     Dawn  of  Day.     Feb.,  1894. 

The  Chinaman.  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  his  Family  Letters.    1895. 

The  P.-R.  B.     Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  his  Family  Letters.    1895. 

Maude.     With  an  introduction  by  W.  M.  Rossetti.    James  Bow- 
den.     London,  1897. 

VOLUMES  OF  PUBLISHED  WORKS,  WITH  DATES  OF  PUBLICATION. 

First  Verses.     Privately  printed  by  G.  Polidori,  London,  1842. 

Verses.     Privately  printed  at  G.  Polidori's,  London,  1847. 
->  Goblin  Market,  and  Other  Poems.     With  two  designs  by  D.  G. 
Rossetti.     Macmillan  &  Co.     Cambridge,  1862. 

Goblin  Market,  and  Other  Poems.     Second  edition.     Macmillan 

&  Co.     Cambridge,  1865. 

*  The  Prince's  Progress,  and  Other  Poems.    With  two  designs  by 
D.  G.  Rossetti.     Macmillan  &  Co.     London,  1866. 

Poems.     Roberts  Bros.     Boston,  1866. 

Poems.     New  edition  enlarged.     Roberts  Bros.     Boston,  1876. 

Outlines  for  Illuminating.    Consider.     A  poem.     A.-  D.  F.  Ran- 
dolph &  Co.     New  York,  1866. 

II  Mercato  de  Folletti  (Goblin  Market)  ;  poema  tradolto  in  Itali- 

ano  da  T.  P.  Rossetti.     Firenze,  1867. 

.  Commonplace,  and  Other  Short  Stories.     F.  S.  Ellis.     London, 
1870. 


286  £be  IRoesettie. 

Commonplace,  and  Other  Short  Stories.  Roberts  Bros.  Boston, 
1870. 

Sing-Song,  A  Nursery  rhyme  book.  With  120  illustrations  by 
Arthur  Hughes,  engraved  by  the  Brothers  Dalziel.  George 
Routledge  and  Sons.  London,  1872. 

Sing-Song.     Roberts  Bros.     Boston,  1872. 

Sing-Song.  Another  Edition.  George  Routledge  and  Sons. 
London,  1878. 

Sing-Song.     Another  Edition.     Macmillan  &  Co.    London,  1893. 

Annus  Domini,  a  prayer  for  each  day  of  the  year,  founded  on  a 
text  of  Holy  Scripture.  Edited  by  the  Rev.  H.  W.  Burrows. 
James  Parker  &  Co.  London,  1874. 

Annus  Domini.     Roberts  Bros.     Boston. 

Speaking  Likenesses.  With  pictures  thereof  by  Arthur  Hughes. 
Macmillan  &  Co.  London,  1874. 

Speaking  Likenesses.     Roberts  Bros.     Boston,  1874. 

Goblin  Market,  The  Prince's  Progress,  and  Other  Poems.  With 
four  designs  by  D.  G.  Rossetti.  New  Edition.  Macmillan 
&  Co.  London,  1875.  Reprinted,  1879,  1884,  1888. 

Seek  and  Find.  A  double  series  of  short  studies  of  the  Benedicite. 
Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge.  London,  1879. 

A  Pageant,  and  Other  Poems.  Macmillan  &  Co.  London,  1881. 
Passages  from  the  Bible  relating  to  the  Saints,  with  medita- 
tions. 

Poems.     Roberts  Bros.     Boston,  1882. 

Letter  and  Spirit.  Notes  on  the  Commandments.  Society  for 
Promoting  Christian  Knowledge.  London,  1883. 

Time  Flies  :  a  Reading  Diary.  Society  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge.  London,  1885. 

Time  Flies.     Roberts  Bros.     Boston,  1886. 

Poems.  (With  designs  by  D.  G.  Rossetti.)  New  and  enlarged 
Edition.  Macmillan  &  Co.  London,  October,  1890.  Re- 
printed, Dec.,  1890,  Feb.  and  Aug.,  1891,  1892,  1894,  1895, 
1896. 

The  Face  of  the  Deep  :  a  devotional  commentary  on  the  Apoca- 
lypse. (With  the  Text.)  Society  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge.  London,  1892. 

The  Face  of  the  Deep.   E.  and  J.  B.  Young  &  Co.    New  York,  1892. 

Goblin  Market.  Illustrated  by  Laurence  Housman.  Macmillan 
&  Co.  London,  1893. 


Christina  IRossetti's  poems.  287 

.^Verses.  Reprinted  from  Called  to  be  Saints,  Time  Flies,  and 
The  Face  of  the  Deep.  Society  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge.  London,  1893. 

-  New  Poems  by  Christina  Rossetti,  hitherto  unpublished  or  un- 

collected.     Edited  by  William  Michael  Rossetti.     Macmillan 
&  Co.     London  and  New  York,  1896. 

The  Rossetti  Birthday  Book.     Edited  by  Olivia  Rossetti.     Mac- 
millan &  Co.     London  and  New  York,  1896. 

-  Maude.     With  an  Introduction  by  W.  M.  Rossetti.    James  Bow- 

den.     London,  1897. 


CHRONOLOGICAL    LIST   OF    PAINTINGS  AND 

DRAWINGS  BY   DANTE  GABRIEL 

ROSSETTI. 

This  list  is  compiled  almost  entirely  from  the  recent  admirable 
list  by  Mr.  Marillier,  omitting,  however,  the  descriptions, 
remarks,  and  verifications  based  upon  his  own  extensive 
research.  It  will  be  noticed  that  one  painting,  No.  3,  is  not 
included  in  any  previous  list.  This  early  and  interesting 
study  is  in  the  possession  of  Samuel  Bancroft,  Jr.,  of  Wil- 
mington, Delaware. 

PAINTINGS. 

1.  1848.        Gabriele  Rossetti.     (Oil.) 

2.  1848.        Christina  Rossetti.     (Oil.) 

3.  1848.        Oil  Study  of  Bottles  and  Drapery,  with  Reclining 

Figure  introduced  at  a  later  period. 

4.  1848-9.     The  Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin.     (Oil.) 

5.  1849.         "Hist!    said    Kate    the   Queen."      From    Pippa 

Passes.     (Oil.)     Unfinished. 

—  6.    1849.         The     Laboratory.      From     Browning.      (Water- 
colour.) 

7.  1850.         Ecce  Ancilla  Domini.     (Oil.) 

8.  1850.         Rosso  vestita.     (Water-colour.) 

9.  1851.         Borgia.     (Water-colour.) 

10.    1851.         Beatrice  at  a  Marriage  Feast,  Denying  her  Salutation 

to  Dante.     (Water-colour.) 
y.   1851.         "Hist!  said  Kate  the  Queen."     (Small  design  in 

oil.) 

12.   1852.         Two  Mothers.     (Oil.) 

288 


IRossetti'0  paintings  anfc  ^Drawings      289 

13.  1852.        Giotto  painting  Dante's  Portrait.    {Water- colour.} 

14.  1852.         "Guardami  ben;    ben  son,  ben  son  Beatrice:" 

The  Meeting  of  Beatrice  and  Dante  in  Paradise. 
(Water-colour.}  Left  compartment  of  triptych, 
"II  Saluto  di  Beatrice." 

15.  1853.         Miss  Charlotte  Polidori.     (Oil.) 

16.  1853.         Dante  Drawing  the  Angel.     (Water-colour.) 

17.  1853.        Girl  Singing  to  a  Lute.     (Water-colour.) 

1 8.  1853.        Carlisle  Wall,  or  The  Lovers.     (Water-colour.) 

19.  1854.        Found.     (Oil.)    Worked  upon  at  intervals  up  to 

1882  and  left  incomplete.  Sky  finally  washed 
in  by  Burne-Jones. 

20.  1854.         Head  of  Miss  Siddal.     (Water-colour.)   — 

21.  1854.         Arthur's  Tomb  ;    The  Last  Meeting  of  Launcelot 

and  Guinevere.     (Water-colour.) 

22.  1855.        The  Annunciation.     (Water-colour.) 

23.  1855.        La  Belle  Dame  sans  Mercy.     (Water-colour.)  •— 

24.  1855.         Paolo  and  Francesca  da  Rimini.     (Water-colour.) 

Diptych. 

25.  1855.         Matilda    Gathering    Flowers.      From  Purgatorio. 

( Water-colour. ) 

26.  18155.        Miss  Siddal,  seated  on  Ground.     (Water-colour.) 

27.  1855.         Robert  Browning.     (Water-colour.) 

28.  1855.         Dante's  Vision  of  Rachel  and  Leah.     From  Purga- 

torio.    ( Water-colour. ) 

29.  1855.         The  Nativity.     (Water-colour.) 

30.  1855-6.     The  Carol.     (Water-colour.) 

31.  1855-6.     Beatrice    Denying    Salutation.     (Water-colour.) 

Replica  of  No.  10. 

32.  1855-6.     Passover   in   the  Holy  Family.     (Water-colour.) 

Unfinished. 

33.  1856.         Dante's    Dream.      (Water-colour.)     A  small  and 

early  version. 

34.  1856.         Fra  Pace.     (Water-colour.) 

35.  1856.        The  Seed  of  David  :  Christ  Adored  by  a  Shepherd 

and  a  King.  With  Two  Figures  of  David. 
( Water-colour. )  First  sketches  for  the  Llandaff 
Triptych. 

36.  1856?       Miss  Eliza  Polidori.     (Oil.) 

37.  1857.         The  Damsel  of  the  Sane  Grael.     (Water-colour.) 


290  Gbe  IRoesettte. 

38.  1857-65.  Death  of  Breuse  sans  Pitie.    (Water-colour.)    Re- 

touched or  repainted  in  1865. 

39.  1857-64.  The  Chapel  before  the  Lists.     (Water-colour.) 

40.  1857.         The  Tune  of  Seven  Towers.     (Water-colour.) 

41.  1857.        The  Blue  Closet.     (Water-colour.) 

42.  1857.        The  Wedding  of  St.  George  and  the   Princess 

Sabra.     ( Water-colour. ) 

43.  1857.         The  Gate  of  Memory.     (Water-colour.) 

44.  1857.        The  Garden  Bower.     (Water-colour.) 

45.  1857.         "Gwendolen  in  the  Witch  Tower"  :     A  Knight 

Arming.  From  the  Christmas  Mystery  of  Sir 
Galahad.  (Oil.)  Two  panels  on  chairs,  done 
for  William  Morris. 

46.  1857.         Launcelot  at  the  Shrine  of  the  Sane  Grael.    (  Tem- 

pera.) Mural  design  for  Oxford  Reading- 
Room.  Now  perished. 

47.  1857.         St.  Cecilia.    (Water-colour.)    Same  design  as  Ten- 

nyson woodcut. 

48.  1857.         St.  Catherine.     (Oil.) 

49.  1857-8.     A  Christmas  Carol.     (Water-colour.) 

50.  1858.        Mary  in  the  House  of  St.  John.     (Water-colour.) 

51.  1858.         Golden  Water  of  Princess  Parisade.     From  the 

Arabian  Nights.     (Water-colour.) 

52.  1858.         Ruth  and  Boaz.     (Water-colour.) 

53.  1858.         Before  the  Battle.     (Water-colour.) 

54.  1859.         Head  of  Christ.     (Water-colour  and.  Oil.) 

55.  c.    1859.  Giotto  painting  Dante's  Portrait.    (Water-colour.) 

Replica  of  No.  13.     Unfinished. 

56.  1859.         Mary  in  the  House  of  St.  John.     (Water-colour.) 

Replica  of  No.  50. 

57.  1859.         Sir  Galahad  at  the  Shrine.    (Water-colour.)    Same 

design  as  Tennyson  woodcut. 

58.  1859.         My  Lady  Greensleeves.     (Water-colour.) 

59.  1859.         Bocca  Baciata.     (Oil.) 

60.  1859.         The  Salutation  of  Beatrice.     Dante  meeting  Bea- 

trice in  Florence  and  in  Paradise.  (Oil. )  Two 
subjects.  Panels  painted  on  a  cabinet  for 
William  Morris. 

61.  1859.         Dantis  Amor.     (Oil.)     Painted  on  panel  of  a  cab- 

inet for  William  Morris. 


IRossetti's  paintings  anfc  Drawing      291 

/• 

62.  1860.         Bonifazio's  Mistress.     (Water-colour.) 

63.  1860?       "Sweet  Tooth."     (Wafer-colour.) 

64.  1860-1.     Lucretia  Borgia  Administering  the  Poison-Draught. 

(Water-colour.) 

65.  1860-64.  Triptych  in  Llandaff  Cathedral.     (Oil.)    Subjects: 

The  Adoration,  and  on  either  side  David  as 
Shepherd  and  David  as  King. 

66.  1 86 1.         Love's  Greeting.     (Oil.)     Panel. 

67.  1861  ?       Dr.  Johnson  at  the  Mitre.     (Water-colour.)     Re- 

plica of  No.  265. 

68.  1 86 1.         Paolo  and  Francesca  da  Rimini.     (Water-colour.) 

Drawing  of  first  compartment  of  diptych  No. 
24. 

69.  1 86 1.         Regina  Cordium.     (Oil.)    Panel.    Portrait  of  Ros- 

setti's  wife. 

70.  1861.        Regina  Cordium.     (Oil.)     Portrait  of  Mrs.  Aldam 

Heaton. 

71.  1861.         Burd  Alane.     (Oil.)     Attributed  to  Rossetti. 

72.  1 86 1.         Fair  Rosamund.     (Oil.) 

73.  1 86 1  ?       The    Farmer's    Daughter.      (Water-colour.)      A 

study  for  "Found,"  and  possibly  of  earlier  date. 

74.  1861.        The  Annunciation.     (Water-colour.)     Design  for 

two  panels  painted  in  oil  on  the  pulpit  of  St. 
Martin's  Church,  Scarborough. 

75.  1861.         King    Rene's    Honeymoon.       Design   for   panel 

"Music."  (Water-colour?)  Copied  in  oil  on 
the  cabinet  built  for  J.  P.  Seddon  by  Morris 
and  Co. 

76.  1861.         Spring.     (Water-colour.)     Design  for  small  panel 

on  Seddon  cabinet. 

77.  1861.         The   Painter's   Wife.      (Miss   Siddal.)      (Water-  - 

colour.} 

78.  1861.        Algernon  Charles  Swinburne.     (Water-colour.)  * — 

79.  1862.        Tristram  and  Yseult   Drinking  the  Love-Potion. 

(Water-colour  on  cartoon.)  One  of  the  series 
commissioned  by  Morris,  Marshall,  Falkner, 
and  Co.  for  stained-glass  windows  in  Birket 
Foster's  house. 

80.  1862?       Christ  in  Glory.     (Water -colour.) 

81.  1862.         Bethlehem  Gate.     (Water-colour.} 


292  Gbe  IRoesettis. 

82.  1862.        St.  George  and  the  Princess  Sabra.  (Water-colour.) 

St.  George  washing  hands  in  a  helmet. 

83.  1862.        Girl  at  a  Lattice.     (Oil.) 

84.  1862.         Heart  of  the  Night,  or  Mariana   in   the   Moated 

Grange.      (Water-colour.)       Same   design   as 
Tennyson  woodcut. 

85.  c.  1862.    Amor,  Amans,  Amata.     (Oil.)     Three  oval  panels 

on  Rossetti's  sofa. 

86.  1862.  Paolo  and  Francesca.     (Water-colour.) 

87.  1862.  Joan  of  Arc.     (Oil.) 

88.  1862.  Fanny  Cornforth  (Mrs.  Schott).     (Oil.) 

89.  1862.  Mrs.  Leathart.     (Oil.) 

90.  1863?  Miss  Herbert.     (Oil.) 

91.  1863  ?  Miss  Herbert.     Study  in  gold  and  umber  on  white 

paper. 

92.  1863.  Beata  Beatrix.     (Oil.) 

93.  1863.  Helen  of  Troy.     (Oil.) 

94.  1863.  St.  George  Slaying  the  Dragon.     (Water-colour.) 

95.  1863.  Belcolore.     (Oil.) 

96.  1863.  Brimfull.     (Water-colour.) 

97.  1863.  A  Lady  in  Yellow.     (Water-colour.) 

98.  1863.  Fazio's  Mistress.     (Oil.)     Also  called  Aurelia. 

99.  1863.  Borgia.     (Water-colour.) 

100.  1864?  King  Rene's  Honeymoon.  (Oil?)  Replica  of  No.  75. 

101.  1864.  Lady  in  White  at  her  Toilet.     (Oil.) 

102.  1864.  Lady  Lilith.     (Oil.) 

103.  1864.  Venus  Verticordia.     (Oil.)     First  version. 

104.  1864.  Venus    Verticordia.       (Water-colour.)      Second 

and  smaller  version. 

105.  1864.        Morning  Music.     (Water-colour.) 

106.  1864.        Monna  Pomona.     (Water-colour.) 

107.  1864.         "  How  Sir  Galahad,  Sir  Bors,    and   Sir  Percival 

were  Fed  with  the  Sane  Grael,  but  Sir  Percival's 
Sister  Died  by  the  Way."     (Water-colour.) 

1 08.  1864.         Roman  de  la  Rose.     (Water-colour.) 

109.  1864.        The  Madness  of  Ophelia.     (Water-colour.) 

1 10.  1864.        Socrates  Taught  to  Dance  by  Aspasia.     (Wash.) 
in.   1864.         II  Saluto  di  Beatrice  :    Meeting  of  Dante  and  Bea- 
trice  in  Florence  and  in   Paradise.     (Water- 
colour.)     Replica  of  panel  diptych  No.  60. 


s  paintings  anb  Drawing      293 

112.  1864.         Beatrice  in  Paradise.    (Water-colour.)     Replica  of 

left  compartment  of  triptych  "II  Saluto  di  Bea- 
trice."    No.  14. 

113.  1864.        How   They   Met    Themselves.      (Water-colour.) 

Replica  of  No.  264. 

114.  1864.         How   They   Met    Themselves.     (Water-colour.) 

Replica  of  Nos.  264,  1 13. 

115.  1864.        Joan  of  Arc.     (Water-colour.)     Another  version 

of  No.  87. 

116.  1864?  Joan  of  Arc.     (Water-colour.)    Replica  of  No.  87. 

117.  1865.  The  Blue  Bower.     (Oil.) 

118.  1865.  The  Merciless  Lady.     (Water-colour.) 

119.  1865.  Fight  for  a  Woman.     (Water-colour.) 

1 20.  1865.  Washing  Hands.     (Water-colour.) 

121.  1865.  II  Ramoscello,  or  Bella  e  Buona.     (Oil.) 

122.  1865.  Mary  Magdalene  at  the  Door  of  Simon.     (Oil.) 

Replica  of  No.  56. 

(It  is  possible  that  this  picture  is  not  entirely  Ros- 
setti's  work.) 

123.  1865.        Mary  Magdalene  at  the  Door  of  Simon.     (Water- 

colour.)     Replica  of  No.  56. 

124.  1865.        Hesterna  Rosa.     (Water-colour.)     Replica  of  No. 

234. 

125.  c.  1865.  Boccaccio's  "Fiammetta."     (Oil.)     Head  only. 

126.  1865.  Mrs.  Vernon  Lushington.     (Water-colour.) 

127.  1865-6.  The  Beloved,  or  The  Bride.     (Oil.) 

128.  1866.  Monna  Vanna.     (Oil.)     Renamed  Belcolore. 

129.  1866-70.  Sibylla  Palmifera.     (Oil.) 

130.  1866.  The  Dancing  Girl,  or  Daughter  of  Herodias.  (Oil.) 

131.  1866.  Regina  Cordium.     (Oil.) 

132.  1866.  Hamlet  and  Ophelia.     (Water-colour.) 

133.  1866.  The  Painter's  Mother.     (Oil.) 

134.  1867.  A  Christmas  Carol.     (Oil.) 

135.  1867.  JoliCoeur.     (Oil.) 

136.  1867.  Monna  Rosa.     (Oil.) 

137.  1867.  The  Loving-Cup.     (Oil.) 

138.  1867.  The  Loving-Cup.     (Water-colour.)     Replica  of 

No.  137. 

139.  1867.        The  Loving-Cup.      (Water-colour.)     Replica  of 

No.  137. 


294  Gbe  1Ro0setti0. 

140.  1867.        The   Loving-Cup.       Water-colour.)     Replica  of 

No.  137. 

141.  1867.        The  Return  of  Tibullus  to  Delia.     (Water-colour.) 

142.  1867.         Aurora.     (Water-colour.) 

143.  1867.         Tessa  La  Bionda. 

144.  1867.        Tristram  and  Yseult  Drinking  the  Love-Potion. 

(Water-colour.) 

145.  1867.         Lilith.     (Water-colour.)    Replica  of  No.  102. 

146.  1867.         Lilith.     (Water-colour.)     Replica  of  No.  102. 

147.  1868.         Bionda  del  Balcone.     (Water-colour.)    Enlarged 

replica  of  Bocca  Baciata. 

148.  1868.        The  Rose — A  Lady  at  a  Window.   (Water-colour.) 

149.  1868.        The  Return  of  Tibullus  to  Delia.    (Water-colour.) 

Replica  of  No.  141. 

150.  1868.        Venus  Verticordia.     (Water-colour.)  Replica   of 

No.  103. 

151.  1868.         St.   George    and   the    Princess   Sabra.     (Water- 

colour.  ) 

152.  1868.        Mrs.  Leyland.     (Oil.) 

153.  1868.         Mrs.  Morris.    (Oil.) 

154.  1870.         Mariana.     (Oil.) 

155.  1871.        Lucretia   Borgia.      (Water-colour.)     Replica    of 

No.  64. 

156.  1871.         Elena's   Song.      (Water-colour.)     Replica  on    a 

larger  scale  of  Hesterna  Rosa. 

157.  1871.         Beata  Beatrix.     (Water-colour.)    Small  replica  of 

No.  92. 

158.  1871.         Pandora.     (Oil.) 

159.  1871.        Water- Willow.     (Oil.) 

1 60.  1871-81.  Dante's  Dream.     (Oil.) 

161.  1872.         Beata  Beatrix.     (Oil.)    Replica  with  predella  of 

No.  92. 

162.  1872.  The  Bower  Meadow.     (Oil.) 

163.  1872.  Head  of  Beatrice.     (Oil.) 

164.  1872.  Veronica  Veronese.     (Oil.) 

165.  1872.  Proserpine.     (Oil.) 

1 66.  1872.  Blanzifiore.     (Oil.) 

167.  c.  1872.  Lady  in  Blue  Dress.     (Water-colour.) 
j68.  1873.  La  Ghirlandata.     (OS.) 

169.   1873-7.     Proserpine.     (Oil.) 


IRossetti's  paintings  ant)  drawings      295 

170.  1874.  Proserpine.     (Oil.}     Replica  of  No.  169.  «•> 

171.  1874.  The  Damsel  of  the  Sane  Grael.     (Oil.) 

172.  1874.  The  Roman  Widow.     (Oil.) 

173.  c.  1874.  The  Boat  of  Love.     (Grisaille.) 

174.  1874.  Rosa  Triplex.  (Water-colour.)  Replica  of  No.  333. 

175.  1874.  The  Blessed  Damozel.     (Oil.)     Sometimes  called 

Sancta  Lilias. 

176.  1874.        Marigolds  ;   also  called  Fleurs  de   Marie,   Bower 

Maiden,  and  Gardener's  Daughter.     (Oil.) 

177.  1875.         La  Bella  Mano.     (Oil.) 

178.  1876-7.     The  Blessed  Damozel,  with  predella.     (Oil.)    — - 

179.  1876.        Mnemosyne,    or, The   Lamp   of    Memory.     Also 

called  Ricordanza.     (Oil.) 

1 80.  1876.        Domizia  Scaligera.     (Oil.)     Unfinished. 

181.  1877.         Mary  Magdalene.     (Oil.) 

182.  1877.        Astarte  Syriaca.     (Oil.) 

183.  1877.        The  Sea-spell.     (Oil.) 

184.  1877.        Beata    Beatrix.     Unfinished    replica    of  No.   92, 

worked  on  by  Madox  Brown.     (Oil.) 

185.  1878.        A  Vision  of  Fiammetta.     (Oil.) 

1 86.  1878.         Bruna  Brunelleschi.     (Water-colour.) 

187.  1878-80.  Gretchen,  or  Risen  at  Dawn.     (Oil.) 

1 88.  1879.        La  Donna  della  Finestra.     (Oil.) 

189.  1879.        The   Blessed   Damozel.     (Oil.)     Replica  of  No. 

178,  but  without  groups  of  lovers  in  the  back- 
ground. 

190.  1880.        Dante's  Dream.     (Oil.)     Reduced  replica  of  No. 

1 60,  with  double  predella. 

191.  1880.        Proserpine.     (Water-colour.)    Reduced  replica  of 

No.  169. 

192.  1880.         Beata  Beatrix.     (Oil.)     Large  replica  of  No.  92. 

193.  1880.         The  Day-Dream.     (Oil.) 

194.  1 880- 1.     The  Salutation  of  Beatrice.     (Oil.)     Unfinished. 

195.  1 880- 1.     The  Salutation  of  Beatrice.    (Oil.)    Replica  of  No. 

194,  on  a  smaller  scale. 

196.  1 88 1.        La  Donna  della  Finestra.     Also  called  The  Lady 

of  Pity.     (Oil.)    Unfinished  replica  of  No.  1 88. 

197.  1 88 1.         La  Pia.     (Oil.) 

198.  1882.        Proserpine.     (Oil.)     Small  replica  of  No.  169.   m~ 

199.  1882.        Joan  of  Arc.     (Oil.)     Replica  of  No.  1 15. 


296  Gbe  IRoseettte. 

DRAWINGS  AND  CARTOONS  IN  CRAYON,  COLOURED  CHALK, 
PENCIL,  ETC. 

200.  1834-47.  Juvenilia  and  Student's  Sketches. 

201.  1846.        W.  M.  Rossetti.     (Pencil.} 

202.  1847.        Dante  G.  Rossetti.     (Pencil  and  White  Chalk.) 

203.  c.  1847,    Miss  Charlotte  Polidori.     (Pencil.") 

204.  1848.        The  Sun  may  Shine,  and  We  be  Cold.    (Pen-and' 

ink.} 

205.  1848.        Gretchen    and    Mephistopheles    in    the    Chapel. 

(Pen-and-ink.) 

206.  1848.  Retro  me  Sathana.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

207.  1848.  Genevieve.     (Pen-and-ink.)     From  Coleridge. 

208.  c.  1848.  Ulalume.      (Pen-and-ink.)     From  Edgar  A.  Poe. 

209.  c.  1848.  The  Raven.    (Pen-and-ink.)    From  Edgar  A.  Poe. 

210.  1848.  Gaetano  Polidori.     (Pencil.) 

211.  1848?  Christina  Rossetti.     (Pencil.) 

212.  1848-9.  Michael  Scott's  Wooing.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

213.  1848.  Death  of  Marmion.     (Pencil.) 

214.  1849.  Taurello's  First  Sight  of  Fortune.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

From  Browning. 

215.  1849.         The  First  Anniversary  of  the  Death  of  Beatrice: 

Dante  Drawing  the  Angel.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

216.  1849.         Dorothy  and  Theophilus.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

217.  1849-50.  II  Saluto  di  Beatrice.    (Pen-and-ink.)    First  design 

for  diptych  of  Dante  and  Beatrice. 

218.  1850.         Benedick  and  Beatrice.     (Pencil.) 

219.  1850.         "To  caper  nimbly  in  a  Lady's  Chamber  to  the 

Lascivious  Pleasing  of  a  Lute. "    (Pen-and-ink.) 

220.  c.  1850.  A  Parable  of  Love.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

221.  c.  1850.  Major  Calder  Campbell.     (Pencil.) 

222.  1851.  How  They  Met  Themselves.     (Pen-and-ink. j 

223.  1852.  Teodorico  Pietrocola-Rossetti.     (Pencil.) 

224.  1852.  Wm.  Bell  Scott.     (Crayon.) 

225.  1852.  Ford  Madox  Brown.     (Pencil.) 

226.  1853.  W.  Holman  Hunt.     (Pencil.) 

227.  c.  1853.  Miss  Margaret  Polidori.     (Pencil.) 

228.  1853.  Gabriele  Rossetti.     (Pencil.) 

229.  1853.  The  Painter's  Mother.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

230.  1853.  The  Painter's  Mother.     (Pen-and-ink.) 


IRossetti's  paintings  ant)  2>rawings      297 

231.  1853.         Gaetano  Polidori.     (Pencil.) 

232.  1853.         D.  G.  and  W.  M.  Rossetti.     (Pen-and-ink.) 
233«  !^53-         D.  G.  R.  sitting  to   Miss   Siddal.     (Pen-and-ink 

and  Wash.) 

234.  1853.         Hesterna  Rosa.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

235.  1853.        Fra  Angelico    Painting,  and   Giorgione   Painting 

from  a  Model.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

236.  1853.         Lo  Marinaio  oblia  che  passa  per  tal  via.     (Pen- 

and-ink.) 
237-   J853-         Girl  Trundling  an  Infant.    (Pen-and-ink.) 

238.  1853.        Studies  for  "  Found"  in  Pen-and-ink  and  Pencil. 

239.  1854.         The  Queen's  Page.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

240.  1854?       Miss  Siddal.     (Pen-and-ink.)  — 

241.  1854.         Miss  Siddal  Seated  at  Window.    (Pencil  and  Pen- 

and-ink.) 

242.  1854.  The  Painter's  Mother.     (Pencil.) 

243.  1855.  Dante  G.  Rossetti.     (India  ink.) 

244.  1855.  Tennyson  reading  Maud.     (Pen-and-ink.)   — • 

245.  1855.  The  Maids  of  Elfen-Mere.     (Woodcut.) 

246.  c.  1855.  Dantesque  Composition.     (Pencil.) 

247.  c.  1855.  Composition  of  Three  Kneeling  Figures.  (Pencil.) 

248.  c.  1855.  Era  in  Pensier  d'  Amor  :  From  a  Ballata  of  Caval- 

canti.     (Pencil.) 

249.  c.  1855.  Cat's-Cradle.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

250.  0.1855.  A  Fencing  Scene.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

251.  1856.  Miss  Siddal  Reclining  in  an  Arm-Chair.     (Pencil.) 

252.  1856  ?  Miss  Siddal  in  an  Arm-Chair,  Reading.    (Pencil.) 

253.  1856  ?  Design  for  a  Ballad.     (India  ink.) 

254.  1856.  Head  of  a  Child  with  Bonnet.     (Pencil.) 

255.  c.  1856.  Faust  and   Margaret  in  the   Prison.     (Pen-and- 

ink.) 

256.  1856-7.     Five  Designs  for  Moxon's  Tennyson.    (Woodcuts.) 

257.  1857?       St.  Luke,  the  Painter.     (Crayon.) 

258.  1857.        Miss  Jane  Burden,  afterwards  Mrs.  Morris,  aet.  18. 

(Pen-and-ink.) 

259.  1857.        Sir  Galahad,  Sir  Bors  and  Sir  Percival,  Receiving 

the  Sane  Grael.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

260.  1857.         Launcelot  escaping  from  Guinevere's   Chamber. 

(Pen-and-ink.) 

261.  1858.         Hamlet  and  Ophelia.     (Pen-and-ink.) 


298  Gbe  IRossettte. 

-*  262.  1858.  Mary  Magdalene  at  the  Door  of  Simon  the  Phari- 
see.    (Pen-and-ink.} 

263.  1859.  Dantis  Amor.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

264.  1860.  How  They  Met  Themselves.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

265.  1860.  Dr.  Johnson  at  the  Mitre.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

266.  1860.  Joseph  accused  by  Potiphar's  Wife.     (Pen-and- 

ink.  ) 

267.  1860.  Head  of  Mrs.  Morris.     (Pencil.) 

268.  1860.  Giuseppe  Maenza.     (Pencil.) 

269.  1860.  Mrs.  F.  M.  Brown.     (Pencil.) 
—*  270.  1860.  The  Painter's  Wife.     (Pencil.) 

271.  1860.  Giuseppe  Maenza.     (Pencil.) 

«--  272.  1860.  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne.     (Pencil.) 

273.  1860.  Miss  Herbert.     (Pencil.) 

274.  1860-1.  The  Rose  Garden.     (Pen-and-ink.) 
— .  275.  1 86 1.  The  Painter's  Wife.     (Pencil.) 

276.  1861.  The  Rose  Garden.     (Etching.) 

277.  1861.  John  Ruskin.     (Red  Chalk.) 

278.  1 86 1.  Mrs.  H.  T.  Wells.     (Pencil.) 

279.  1 86 1  ?  Lady  Burne-Jones.     (Pencil.) 

280.  1 86 1.  D.  G.  Rossetti.     (Pencil.) 

-    281.  c.  1 86 1.  The  Artist's  Wife  Standing  before  a  Picture  on  an 
Easel.     (Pencil. ) 

282.  1 86 1.  Lachesis.     (Pencil.) 

283.  1 86 1.  Cassandra.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

284.  1 86 1.  Goblin  Market.     (Woodcuts.) 

285.  1 86 1.  Adam  and  Eve  before  the  Fall.      Cartoons.) 

286.  1 86 1.  Parable  of  the  Vineyard.     (Cartoons.) 

287.  1 86 1.  The  Crucifixion.     (Cartoon.) 

288.  1861.  The  Last  Judgment.     (Cartoon.) 

289.  1861-2.  St.  George  and  the  Dragon.     (Cartoons.) 

290.  1862.  King  Rene's  Honeymoon.     (India  ink.) 

291.  1862.  St.  Margaret.     (Cartoon.) 

292.  1862.  Angel  Swinging  a  Censer.     (Cartoon.) 

293.  1862.  The  Annunciation.     (Cartoon.) 

294.  1862.  Joseph  and  Mary  at  the  House  of  St.  Elizabeth, 

(Cartoon.) 

295.  1862?  Threshing.     (Sepia.) 

"~~  296.  c.  1862.  The  Crucifixion.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

297.  1862.  Miss  Boyd.     (Pencil.) 


IRossetti's  paintings  anb  Drawings      299 

298.  1862.  The  Artist's  Mother.     (Black  and  red  Chalk.) 

299.  c.  1862.  The  Hair-Net.     (Pencil.) 

300.  c.  1862.  The  Laurel.     (Pencil.) 

301.  1863.  Miss  Henrietta  Polidori.     (Pencil.) 

302.  1863.  Miss  Ada  Vernon.     (Pencil.) 

303.  1865.  Chas.  A.  Howell.     (Black  Crayon.) 

304.  c.  1865.  Three  Sang  of  Love  Together.     (Pencil.) 

305.  c.  1865.  Aspecta  Medusa.     (Pencil  and  Crayon.)  •*- 

306.  c.  1865.  Juliet  and  the  Old  Nurse.     (Pen-and-ink.') 

307.  c.  1865.  Circe.     (Crayon.) 

308.  c.  1865.  Diana.     (Crayon.) 

309.  1866.  Michael  Scott's  Wooing.     (Crayon.) 

310.  1866.  The  Prince's  Progress.     (Woodcuts.) 

311.  c.  1866.  Dantis  Amor.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

312.  1866.  Heart's-ease.     (Pencil.) 

313.  1866.  Christina  Rossetti.     (Crayon.) 

314.  1867.  F.  Madox  Brown.     (Pencil.) 

315.  1867.  Head  of  a  Magdalen.     (Crayon.) 

316.  1867.  Peace.     (Crayon.) 

317.  1867.  Contemplation.     (Crayon.) 

318.  1867.  Venus  Verticordia.     (Crayon.) 

319.  c.  1867-8.  Lilith.     (Crayon.) 

320.  c.  1867-8.  Lilith.     (Crayon.)     Head  and  Bust. 

321.  1868.  Mrs.  J.   Fernandez:   two  subjects.     (Pencil  and 

Crayon. ) 

322.  c.  1868.  Ricorditi  di  me  che  son  La  Pia.     (Crayon.) 

323.  c.  1868.  Aurea  Catena.     (Crayon.) 

324.  1868.  Reverie.     (Crayon.) 

325.  1868.  La  Penserosa.     (Crayon.) 

326.  1869.  Miss  Calliope  Coronio.     (Crayon.) 

327.  1869.  Mrs.  Howell.     (Crayon.) 

328.  1869.  Mrs.  Stillman.     (Miss  Marie  Spartali.)    (Crayon.) 

329.  1869.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount.     (Cartoon.) 

330.  1869.  La  Donna  della  Finestra.     (Crayon.) 

331.  1869.  Beata  Beatrix.     (Crayon.)     Replica  of  No.  92. 

332.  1869.  A  Portrait.     (Crayon.) 

333.  c.  1869.     Rosa  Triplex.     (Crayon.) 

334.  1869.  Penelope.     (Crayon.) 

335.  1869.  La  Mandolinata.     (Crayon.) 

336.  1869.  A  Girl  Holding  her  Knees.     (Crayon.) 


300  Gbe  IRossettte. 

337.  c.  1869.  Orpheus  and  Eurydice.     (Pencil.) 

338.  1869.  Pandora.     (Crayon.)     Study  for  No.  158. 

339.  1870.  La  Donna  della  Fiamma.     (Crayon.) 

340.  1870.  Silence.     (Crayon.) 

341.  1870.  The  Roseleaf.     (Pencil.) 

342.  1870.  The  Prisoner's  Daughter.     (Crayon.) 

343.  1870.  The  Couch.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

344.  1870.  Lady  with  a  Fan.     (Crayon.) 

345.  1870.  Study  for  La  Donna  della  Finestra,  or  the  Lady  of 

Pity.     (Crayon.) 

346.  1870.         Study  for  La  Donna  della  Finestra,  or  the  Lady  of 

Pity.     (Crayon.) 

347.  1870.         Mary  Magdalene  at  the  Door  of  Simon.   (Crayon.) 

348.  c.  1870.     Beata  Beatrix.     (Crayon.)     Replica  of  No.  92. 

349.  1870.         Design  for  the  Bride's  Prelude.    (Pencil.)   Subject 

and  date  conjectural. 


350.  c.  1870. 

Troy  Town.     (Crayon  and  Wash.) 

351.  c.  1870? 

Death  of  Lady  Macbeth.     (Pencil.) 

352.  1870-75. 

Studies  for  Dante's  Dream.     (Crayon.) 

353.  1870. 

W.  J.  Stillman.     (Crayon.) 

354.  1870. 

Mrs.  Virtue  Tebbs.     (Crayon.) 

355.  1870. 

Dante  G.  Rossetti.     (Pencil.) 

356.   1870. 

Mrs.  Aglaia  Coronio.     (Crayon.) 

357.  1870? 

Mrs.  Cassavetti  and  Miss  Cassavetti.      (Crayons.) 

358.  1870. 

Miss  Baring.     (Crayon.) 

359.  1870. 

Mrs.  William  Morris.   (Crayon.) 

360.   1  87  1  . 

Miss  Jane  and  Miss  May  Morris.     (Crayon.) 

361.    1871. 

Proserpine.     (Crayon.) 

362.   1871. 

Perlascura.     (Crayon.) 

363.   1872. 

Paetus  and  Arria.     (Pencil.) 

364.  c.  1872. 

La  Gitana.     (Crayon.) 

365.  1872. 

Miss  May  Morris.     (Crayon  ?) 

366.   1872. 

Dr.  Gordon  Hake.     (Crayon.) 

367.   1872. 

Mrs.  Valpy.     (Crayon.) 

368.  1873. 

Ligeia  Siren.     (Crayon.) 

369.  1873. 

The  Blessed  Damozel.     (Crayon.) 

370.  1873. 

G.  Gordon  Hake.     (Crayon.) 

371.  c.  1873. 

Mrs.  Morris.     (Pen-and-ink.) 

372.  1874. 

Mrs.  Lucy  Rossetti.     (Coloured  Chalk.) 

373.  1874. 

Theodore  Watts-Dunton.     (Crayon.) 

TRossetti's  (paintings  anb  Drawings      301 

374.  1874.  Mrs.  Schott.     (Crayon.) 

375.  1875.  Mrs.  Stillman.     (Crayon.) 

376.  1875.  Mrs.  Chas.  A.  Howell. 

377.  1875.  Portrait  of  Mrs.  Morris  with  a  Bowl  of  Flowers. 

(Pen-and-ink. ) 

378.  1875.  The  Blessed  Damozel.     (Red  Chalk.)  - 

379.  c.  1875.  Blessed  Damozel.     (Crayon.}  — 

380.  c.  1875.  Madonna  Pietra.     (Crayon.} 

381.  1875.  The  Question,  also  called  The  Sphinx.     (Pencil.} 

382.  1875.  Astarte  Syriaca.     (Pen-and-ink.} 

383.  1876.  Head  of  a  Magdalen.     (Crayon.} 

384.  1876.  The  Dulcimer.     (Crayon.} 

385.  1876.  Spirit  of  the  Rainbow.     (Crayon.} 

386.  1876.  Forced  Music.     (Crayon.} 

387.  1876.  Lady  Mount  Temple.       Crayon.} 

388.  1876?  Mrs.  Stillman.     (Crayon.} 

389.  1877.  Mrs.  Rossetti  and  Christina  Rossetti.     (Crayon.} 

390.  1877.  Christina  Rossetti.     (Crayon.} 

391.  1877.  Christina  Rossetti.     (Crayon.} 

392.  1897.  The  Painter's  Mother.     (Crayon.} 

393.  1878-81  Desdemona's  Death  Song.    (Crayon,  Pencil,  etc.) 

Designs  for  picture  not  executed. 

394.  1879.  Pandora.     (Crayon.} 

395.  1879.  Sancta  Lilias.     (Crayon.} 

396.  1879?  F.  R.  Leyland.     (Crayon.} 

397.  1880.  La  Donna  della  Finestra,  or  The  Lady  of  Pity. 

(Crayon.} 

398.  1880.  The  Sonnet.     (Pen-and-ink.} 


INDEX. 


Abruzzo,  home  of  Nicola  Rossetti,  i 

Academy,  The,  139  ;  Mr.  Stillman's  let- 
ter to,  153-155 

/Id-vent,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti, 
260 

After  This  the  Judgment,  poem  by 
Christina  Rossetti,  quoted,  270 

Aldwick  Lodge,  195 

Alice's    Adventures    in    Wonderland, 

'47 

Alleyn,  Ellen,  pseudonym  of  Christina 
Rossetti,  66 

Allingham,  William,  letter  from  Rossetti 
to,  71,  87,  89,  96-98,  101-102,  120 

Amore  e  Spema,  poem  by  Gabriele  Ros- 
setti, 5 

Angelico,  Fra,  55 

Angiolieri,  Cecco,  121,  205 

Animals,  the  fondness  of  the  Rossettis 
for,  15,  146-149 

Annunciation,  The,  see  Ecce  Ancilla 
Domini 

Apple-Gathering,  An,  poem  by  Chris- 
tina Rossetti,  260,  275 

Art  Journal,  The,  36 

Arundel  Club,  The,  150 

Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Truth  in  Art,  The,  46 

Astarte  Syriaca,  see  Venus  Astarte 

Athenceum,  The,  on  The  Girlhood  of 
Mary  Virgin,  36  ;  on  The  Ecce  An- 
cilla Domini,  39,  67 

At  Home,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti, 
259 


At  Last,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti, 

273 

Aurea  Catena,  picture,  104 
Autumn,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti, 

252 

Ave,  poem,  130 
Aylwin,  Watts-Dunton's,  105 


B 


Ballads  and  Sonnets,  208 

Bancroft,  Samuel,  26 

Beata  Beatrix,  90,  91,  151,  182,  194 

Before  the  Battle,  picture,  152 

Belgium,  150 

Bell,  Mackenzie,  quoted,  230 

Beloved,  The,  painting  of,  105,  164, 
165,  192 

Birchington-by-the-Sea,  where  Rossetti 
died,  214,  241,  246 

Birthday,  A,  poem  by  Christina  Ros- 
setti, 253 

Blake,  William,  20  ;  life  of,  179-181 

Blessed  Damo^el,  The,  picture,  194       —- 

Blessed  Damo^el,  The,  poem,  63,  69, 
1 16,  129,  130,  131 

Blue  Closet,  The,  picture,   169,  170 

Blue  Closet,  poem  by  Morris,  101 

Bocca  Baciata,  picture,  106 

Bodichon,  Mine.,  154 

Bognor,  241 

Bonaparte,  family  of,  7 

BothieofToper-na-fuosich,  The,  review 
of,  by  Wm.  Rossetti,  60 

Boy  Christ  in  the  Carpenter's  Shop, 
The,  picture  by  John  E.  Millais,  38 


303 


304 


Unfcey. 


Bride's  Prelude,  The,  208 

Broadlands,  195 

Brother  Hilary,  poem,  130 

Brough,  Mr.,  78 

Brown,  Ford  Madox,  25  ;  as  Rossetti's 

teacher,  26,  42,  59,  67  ;  his  Chaucer, 

72,  74  ;  his  description  of  a  visit  from 

Rossetti,   76-86,   109,   in,  117,   158, 

196,  207,  215,  219 
Brown,  Oliver  Madox,  203 
Browning,  Robert,  Rossetti's  enthusiasm 

for,  20,  55,  92,  93,  112-114,  '57 
Browning,  Mrs.,  1 13 
Buchanan,  Robert,  138-140,  216 
Builder,  The,  36 

Burden,  Miss  Jane  ;  see  Morris,  Mrs. 
Burlington   Fine  Arts  Club,  The,   150, 

179 
Burne-Jones,  Edward,  99,  100,  103,  109, 

in,   1 88  ;   his  memorial  to  Christina 

Rossetti,  271 
Burning  Babe,  The,  Southwell's,  233 


Caine,   Hall,    142,    155-156,    178,    199, 

202,  204,  206,  209,  211,  214,  215, 

219-220 

Caine,  Miss  Lily,  214-15 
Campbell,  Calder,  66 
Carillon,  The,  56-58 
Gary's  Academy,  17,  1 8 
Catholic  World,  The,  260 
Cavalcanti,  121 

Century  Guild  Hobby-Horse,  The,  68 
Chatterton,  Thomas,  203 
Cheswick  Press,  The,  68 
Cheyne  Walk,  141-150,  153,  189,  190, 

213 

Choice,  The,  poem,  136 
Christian  Missionary,  The,  picture  by 

Holman  Hunt,  38 
Church,  F.  E.,  44 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  167,  178,  188,  201 
Collinson,  James,  33,  42,  57,  66 
Colvin,  Sidney,  92,  137 
Coming  of  Love,  The,  Watts-Dunton's, 

106 


Commonplace  and  Other  Short  Stories, 

volume  of  prose  by  Christina  Rossetti, 

240 
Confluents,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti, 

275 

Contemporary  Review,  137-139 
Convent    Threshold,     The,    poem    by 

Christina  Rossetti,  261 
Cook,  Clarence,  52 
Cornforth,   Fanny,  106  ;  first  model  for 

the  Lady  Lilith,  165,  182 
Council     Chamber,     The,    picture    by 

Burne-Jones,  167 
Crashaw,  Richard,  270 
Crayon,  The,  44-46 
Cyclographic  Society,  The,  33 


D 


Dalziel,  96-98 

Dante  Alighieri,  6,  19,  64,  65,  92,  118, 

121,  123-126,  132,  225 
Dante  aud  His  Circle,  see  Early  Italian 

Poets,  The 

Dante  at  Verona,  poem,  132-135 
Dante's  Dream,  picture,  177,  194 
D'Arcy,  character  in  Aylwin,  105,  106, 

'47,  '48 

Dantis  Amor,  picture,  108 

Day  and  Night  Songs,  William  Ailing- 
ham's,  96,  97 

Day-Dream,  The,  picture,  104 

Death  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Rossetti's 
scheme  for  a  ballad  on,  209 

Delia  Guardias,  family  of,  i 

Despised  and  Rejected,  poem  by  Chris- 
tina Rossetti,  252 

Deverell,  Walter  Howard,  66 

Dickens,  Charles,  on  the  Pre-Raphaelites, 
36-38 

Dr.  Johnson  at  the  Mitre,  picture,  93, 
1 14,  1 15,  170 

Dodgson,  Mr.  (Lewis  Carroll),  157 

Domi^ia  Scaligera,  picture,  196 

Dreamland,  poem  by  Christina  Ros- 
setti, 60 

Dunn,  Treffry,  190 


flnbey. 


305 


Durham,  Bishop  of,  on  Christina  Ros- 

setti,  271,  272 
Dyce,  William,  35 


Early  Italian  Poets,    The,    volume  of 

translations,   119-122,  126 
Ecce    Ancilla  Domini,    picture,  38-40, 

63,  69,  176 
En  Route,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti, 

239 
End,  An,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti, 

60 
Eve,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti,  262 


Face  of  the  Deep,   devotional  prose  by 

Christina  Rossetti,  245,  274 
Falkner,  Charles,  109,  188 
Farrer,  T.  C.,  46,  49,  50 
Faust,  1 1 

Fazio's  Mistress,  picture,  106 
Ferdinand  I.,  4 
Fiammetta,  picture,  105,  192 
Fifine  at  the  Fair,  poem  by  Browning, 

'57 

Fleshly  School  of  Poetry,  The,  137-140 
Fortnightly  Review,  127,  137 
Found,  picture,  106,  170,  182,  183 
Francesca  da  Rimini,  picture,  79 
Free  Gallery,  The,  38 
From  the  Cliffs,  poem,  56 
Frome,  236 


Garrick  Club,  The,  1 50 
Genevieve,  Coleridge's,  n,  19 
Germ,  The,  53-68 
Gilchrist,  Alexander,  179 
Gilchrist,  Herbert,  145 
Giorgione,  55 

Girlhood  of  Mary  Virgin,  30-33 
Goblin  Market,  and  Other  Poems,  by 
Christina  Rossetti,  231,  254-259,  266 
God  and  the  Man,  Buchanan's,  1 38 
Gosse,  Edmund,  142,  143,  162 
Graham,  Mr.,  158,  189 


H 


Hake,  Dr.,  157,  158,  161 

Hake,  George,  188,  190 

Hand  and  Soul,  prose  story  by  Ros- 
setti, 60,  62 

Hannay,  James,  78 

Her  First  Season,  poem  by  William 
Rossetti,  60 

Herbert,  George,  270 

Herne  Bay,  196 

Highgate  Cemetery,  burial-place  of  Chris- 
tina Rossetti,  248 

Hill,  John  Henry,  49,  5 1 

Hill,  John  W.,  49,  50 

Hogarth,  Rossetti's  opinion  of  his  col- 
our, 176 

Holmer  Green,  home  of  Rossetti's  grand- 
father, 229 

House  of  Life,  The,  series  of  sonnets  by 
Rossetti,  129,  136,  208,  224,  264 

Household  Words,  36-38 

How  They  Met  Themselves,  picture,  62 

Howell,  Charles  A.,  192 

Hueffer,  Mr.,  100 

Hughes,  Arthur,  101-103 

Hughes,  Mrs.,  see  Fanny  Cornforth 

Hunt,  Holman,  26-35,  42»  43,  54>  67, 
93,  95,  »3,  158 

Hunt,  Leigh,  1 1 7 

Hunter's  Forestall,  196,  241 

Hunting  of  the  Snark,  The,  Lewis  Car- 
roll's, 157 

I 
In  a  Gondola,  Browning's,  136 

J 

Jenny,  poem,  134,  135 
Joan  of  Arc,  picture,  95,  170,  171,  194, 
209,  2 1 5 

K 

Keats,   John,   life   of,    114;    116,    201, 

227 


306 


Unfcey. 


Keble,  John,  270 

Kelmscott,  139,  148,  159-161,  183-188, 

241         . 
"  King  Rene's    Honeymoon    Cabinet," 

1 10 

King's  College  School,  16,  17 
King's  Tragedy,  The,  poem,  206-208 
Knight,  Joseph,  137,  150 


La.  Donna  della  Fiamma,  picture,  104 
La  Rimembran^a,    poem    by   Gabriele 

Rossetti,  3 
Laboratory,   The,  poem   by  Browning, 

93 
Lady  Lilith,  picture,  32,  95,  106,    151, 

165-169,  195 

Lady  of  Shalott,  The,  Rossetti's  illus- 
tration to,  97,  98 

Lady  with  the  Fan,  picture,  106 

Lambs  of  Grasmere,  The,  poem  by 
Christina  Rossetti,  253 

Landor,  W.  S.,  his  love  of  animals,  229 

Lang,  Andrew,  131 

Last  Confession,  A,  poem,  129 

Later  Life,  sonnets  by  Christina  Ros- 
setti, 237 

Layard,  Mr.,  95,  98,  99 

Leaves  of  Grass,  \  14 

Lenore,  Burger's,  Rossetti's  translation 
of,  118 

Lentino,  Jacopo  da,  122 

Leyland,  Mr.,  152,  214 

Life  of  Johnson,  Boswell's,  Rossetti's 
liking  for,  1 14 

Lionardo  da  Vinci,  55 

Llandaff,  Rossetti's  work  on  cathedral 
at,  99 

London  Quarterly  Review,  The,  on 
Sing-Song,  269 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  114 

Louis  Philippe,  7 

Love  and  Hope,  translation  of  poem  by 
Gabriele  Rossetti,  3 

Love  Lies  Bleeding,  poem  by  Christina 
Rossetti,  235 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  on  Gabriele  Ros- 
setti's Disamina,  6 


M 

MacCracken,  Mr.,  176 
Mackail,  107,  108,  189 
Magdalen  The,  picture,  171,  195 
Maids  ofElfen-Mere,  The,  woodcut,  96, 

97 

Manet,  150,  151 
Mantegna,  55 

Mariana  in  the  South,  woodcut,  97 
Marillier,  H.  C,  93,  103,  106,  164,  172, 

'74 

Marshall,  John,  157 
Marshall,  P.  P.,  109,  188 
Marston,  Philip  Bourke,  210 
Martin,  Sir  Theodore,  123-126 
Martyr,  A,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti, 

271 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  in 
Mary  Magdalene  at  the  Door  of  Simon, 

picture,  177 
Mazzini,  7 

Memling,  John,  57,  58,  112 
Memory,    poem  by   Christina  Rossetti, 

235 

Meredith,  George,  144 

Merimee,  Prosper,  42 

Millais,  John,  23,  32-35,  43,  59,  72-73 

Modern  Painters,  Ruskin's,  45,  114 

Monet,  51 

Monna  Innominata,  sonnets  by  Christina 
Rossetti,  224,  234-236,  252,  262-266 

Monna  Vanna,  picture,  145,  192 

Moore,  Geo.,  38,  39 

Moreau,  Gustavo,  214 

Morris,  William,  28,  51,  99-104;  his 
connection  with  the  firm  of  Morris, 
Falkner,  &  Co.,  102,  108-110;  work 
at  Oxford  Union,  102-104  '>  Mackail's 
description  of,  107,  109,  no,  137,188 

Morris,  Mrs.,  104-105,  107 

Mount-Temple,  Lord,  195 

Moxon,  97,  98 

My  Sister's  Sleep,  poem,  60 

N 

National  Academy  of  Design,  47-49 
National  Gallery,  39 
New  Gallery,  175 


flnbey. 


307 


New  Path,  The,  47,  49,  51 
Niebelungenlied,  Rossetti's  partial  trans- 
lation of,  1 1 8 

Noble,  J.  A.,  on  The  Germ,  66,  67 
Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  103,  152 

O 

Old  and  New  Art,  poem,  130 

Old  and  New   Year  Ditties,  poems  by 
Christina  Rossetti,  260 

Old  Enemy,  An,    Buchanan's  verses  to 
Rossetti,  138,  140 

Old-World    Thicket,    An,    poem    by 
Christina  Rossetti,  274 

On  the  Refusal  of  Aid  between  Nations, 
203 

Orchard,  John,  64 

One  Hope,  The,  130 

Orlandi,  121 

Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine,  The, 
68 

Oxford  Union,   decorations   by   Morris, 
Rossetti,  and  others,  102-104 
P 

Pageant  and  Other  Poems,  A,  by  Chris- 
tina Rossetti,  262 

Palace  of  Art,  The,  Rossetti's  illustration 
to,  97,  98 

Pandora,  picture,  104 

Paris,  150 

Pater,  Walter,  on  Rossetti,  69,  226 

Patmore,  Coventry,  40,  59,  60,  120 

Patrick  Spens,  Sir,  132 

Pauline,  Rossetti's  discovery  of,  113 

Pax  yobis,  poem,  56 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  67 

Penelope,  picture,  32 

Penkill  Castle,  239 

Penumbra,  poem,  136 

Perthshire,  Scotland,  158 

Peters,  S.  T. ,  171 

Pippa  Passes,  Browning's  92 

Poems,  Rossetti's,  1 28-140 ;  cover  for,  143 

Poems,  Christina  Rossetti's,  261 

Polidori,  family  of,  4 

Polidori,  Frances  Mary  Lavina,  see  Ros- 
setti, Mrs.  Gabriele 

Polidori,  Charlotte,  25 


Portrait,  The,  poem,  130 

Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood,  The,  22- 
53  ;  Rossetti's  part  in,  23,  24  ;  the 
code  of,  34  ;  Dickens  on,  36  ;  disso- 
lution of,  41,  53,  54 

Pre-Raphaelitism,  43-52,  126 

Prince's  Progress  and  Other  Poems, 
The,  by  Christina  Rossetti,  239 

Prinsep,  Valentine,  on  Rossetti's  "  Cock- 
ney "  tastes,  87,  88,  103 

Proserpine,  picture,  104,  164,  167,  182, 
i 86,  192-194 

Q- 

Quarterly  Review,  35,  272 

R 

Raphael,  35,  55 

Raven,  The,  Poe's,  63 

Recollection,  translation  of  poem  by 
Gabriele  Rossetti 

Red  House,  Wm.  Morris's  home  at,  108 

Red  Lion  Square,  Wm.  Morris's  rooms 
in,  1 02 

Revery,  picture,  104 

Return  of  Tibullus  to  Delia,  The,  pic- 
ture, 177 

Roehampton,  157 

Rose  Mary,  poem,  208 

Rossetti,  Christina  Georgina,  birth  of,  5, 
10  ;  early  reading,  12  ;  her  likeness  to 
Dante  Gabriel  in  childhood  ;  as  model 
for  The  Girlhood  of  Mary  yirgin,  31 ; 
her  contributions  to  The  Germ,  60, 
146,196,197,211,214,227;  her  love 
of  animals,  229  ;  her  name,  230  ;  her 
religious  scruples,  230  ;  her  first  volume 
of  poems,  230  ;  her  sonnets,  234,  235  ; 
her  interest  in  nature,  236-238  ;  her 
trip  to  Italy,  239  ;  her  illness,  240  ;  her 
personal  appearance,  241  ;  her  books, 

246  ;    her  devotion   to   her   mother, 

247  ;   her  death,  248  ;  her  character, 
249;    her  poetry,  251-265  ;    her  chil- 
dren's books,  266-289 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  colour  of  his 
hair,  i ;  birth  ot,  5  ;  early  surround- 
ings, 5-9 ;  his  attitude  towards  his 
mother,  10;  his  early  education,  10, 


3o8 


flnbey. 


Rossetti — Continued 

1 1  ;  his  first  poem,  The  Slave,  \  i  ; 
his  reading  in  boyhood,  1 1  ;  his  illus- 
tration of  Genevieve,  1 2  ;  lack  of  me- 
chanical skill,  12;  favourite  games  in 
childhood,  13;  disposition  as  a  child, 
12,  13,  14  ;  his  innate  simplicity,  15  ; 
his  schooling,  16-19  ;  his  interest  in 
early  Italian  literature,  19  ;  his  tastes 
in  youth,  2 1  ;  his  start  as  an  indepen- 
dent artist,  24-27  ;  his  acquaintance 
with  Ford  Madox  Brown,  25  ;  his 
"bottle-picture,"  26;  his  habit  of 
work  in  his  youth,  29  ;  Holman 
Hunt's  description  of,  30;  Watts-Dun- 
ton's  description  of,  30;  his  first  studio, 
30  ;  his  painting  The  Girlhood  of 
Mary  Virgin,  30  ;  his  picture  Ecce 
Ancilla  Domini,  39,  40  ;  inaugurates 
The  Germ,  5 1  ;  trip  to  Paris  and  Bel- 
gium with  Holman  Hunt,  54  ;  his  im- 
pressions of  the  Old  Masters,  55-58  ; 
his  poems  by  the  way,  56  ;  his  contri- 
bution to  The  Germ,  60-66;  his  meet- 
ing with  Miss  Siddal,  70  ;  his  appreci- 
ation of  her  qualities,  71;  his  engage- 
ment to  her,  73  ;  his  marrige,  74  ;  his 
visit  to  Madox  Brown,  76  ;  his  youth- 
ful eccentricity,  76,  77  ;  his  generosity, 
78,  79  ;  his  relations  with  Ruskin,  84; 
his  married  life,  86-89  >  decoration  of 
his  rooms,  87  ;  his  "  cockney  "  tastes, 
87,  88  ;  his  wife's  death,  89-91  ;  me- 
morial to  her  in  the  Beata  Beatrix,  90 
-91  ;  his  richest  period,  92-94  ;  his 
habits  of  painting,  94-96  ;  his  wood- 
cuts, 96-98  ;  his  designs  for  the  Ten- 
nyson volume,  99  ;  his  work  for  the 
cathedral  at  Llandaff,  99  ;  acquaint- 
ance with  Morris  and  Burne-Jones, 
100  ;  work  at  Oxford  Union,  102-104; 
his  favourite  models,  104-107;  his 
paintings  for  the  "  Red  House,"  108  ; 
painting  on  "  King  Rene's  Honeymoon 
Cabinet,"  1 1 1 ;  teaching  in  the  Work- 
ingmen's  College,  1 1 1 ;  method  of 
teaching,  111,  112  ;  associates  during 
his  middle  years,  112;  visit  to  the 


continent,  112;  his  resistance  to  for- 
eign influences,  112;  on  Modern 
Painters,  114;  his  translations  and 
original  poems,  1 16-140  ;  on  the  duty 
of  a  translator,  119;  his  profit  on  The 
Early  Italian  Poets,  \  20  ;  his  Italian 
sympathies,  121;  burial  of  his  poems 
in  his  wife's  coffin,  126;  their  recovery, 
127  ;  the  romantic  spirit  of  his  poems, 
130;  his  skill  in  ballad-writing,  131- 
132  ;  his  fastidious  workmanship  as 
shown  in  his  poetry,  136  ;  financial 
success  of  The  Poems,  137  ;  anxiety 
over  the  reception  of  his  poems,  137; 
influence  upon  him  of  Buchanan's  at- 
tack, 138-140  ;  beginning  of  break- 
down, 139  ;  life  at  Cheyne  Walk  and 
Kelmscott,  141-160;  his  cordiality  of 
manner,  142,  143  ;  social  tempera- 
ment, 143  ;  his  housekeeping,  145  ; 
his  collection  of  China,  145  ;  his  col- 
lection of  animals,  146,  147;  his  gar- 
den, 149,  150;  his  attempt  at  being  a 
club-man,  150;  his  trip  to  Belgium, 
and  Paris,  150;  his  opinion  of  Manet, 
150,  151  ;  on  Courbet,  151  ;  his  fin- 
ancial success,  151,  152  ;  his  lavish 
expenditure,  151;  his  business  meth- 
ods, 152  ;  his  habits  of  work,  152, 
153  ;  beginning  of  chloral  habit,  153- 
156;  delusions,  156,  157  ;  his  attempt 
at  suicide,  157  ;  his  friendship  with 
Mr.  Watts- Dunton,  160,  161  ;  his 
personal  appearance,  161,  162;  his 
change  of  manner  in  painting,  163  ; 
his  favourite  colours,  169  ;  his  indus- 
try, 1 74  ;  his  passion  for  colour,  1 76  ; 
on  the  use  of  models,  1 80  ;  his  appre- 
ciation of  nature,  183-185  ;  at  Kelm- 
scott, 186-189  ;  his  painting  by  rule, 
191 ;  his  prices,  192;  at  Herne  Bay,  196; 
his  vivid  imagination  as  described  by 
Watts-Dunton,  196-199  ;  on  his  own 
poetry,  205  ;  his  dislike  of  meeting 
strangers,  211  ;  his  last  illness,  213- 
215  ;  his  death,  215;  resume  of  his 
character  and  temperament,  216,  227; 
his  opinion  of  Commonplace,  240 


309 


R 


Rossetti,  Gabriele,  father  of  Dante  Gab- 
riel, 2-9  ;  his  drawings,  2;  his  poetry, 
2-4  ;  his  arrival  in  England,  4 ;  his 
marriage,  5  ;  his  children,  5  ;  his  oc- 
cupation, 6  ;  his  patriotism,  6-8  ;  in- 
scription on  his  tombstone,  8 ;  his 
Disamina,  6 

Rossetti,  Mrs.  Gabriele,  5  ;  her  appear- 
ance, 9 ;  her  characteristics,  9,  10 ; 
her  education  of  her  children,  10,  1 1  ; 
as  model  in  The  Girlhood  of  Mary 
Virgin,  31,  36,  214,  232  ;  death  of, 
247 

Rossetti,  Maria  Francesca,  birth  of,  5  ; 
taste  in  reading,  12;  her  epitome  of 
the  family  temperaments,  16,  231,  232; 
her  death,  245-247  ;  Goblin  Market, 
dedicated  to,  258 

Rossetti,  Nicola,  grandfather  of  Dante 
Gabriel,  12 

Rossetti,  William  Michael,  his  descrip- 
tion of  his  grandfather,  i  ;  birth  of,  5 ; 
quoted,  5,  7,  1 1  ;  his  edition  of  Blake, 
21,  33,  42,  58,  60,  68,  72,  73,  87, 
105,  127,  139,  144,  214 

Royal  Academy,  The,  179 

Rubens,  57 

Ruskin,  John,  22, 35,  37  ;  his  defense  of 
the  Pre-Raphaelites,  40,  41,  43,  44, 
46 ;  on  Miss  Siddal,  71,  74,  79-84, 
102,  111-113,  I2°,  158,  i?2 

Russell,  Lord  John,  67 


Saffi,  Count,  120 

St.  Agnes  of  the  Intercession,  story  by 

Rossetti,  62 
Salutation   of  Beatrice,    The,    picture, 

177 

San  Geminiano,  Fol^ore  da,  122 
Schott,  Mrs.,  see  Cornforth,  Fanny 
Scott,  Wm.  Bell,  66,  87,  in,   137,    19? 
Sea  Limits,  The,  see  From  the  Cliffs 
Seasons,  The,  poem  by  Coventry  Pat- 
more,  60 


Seddon,  John  P.,  214,  21? 

Shakespeare,  201 

Shall  I  Forget,  poem  by  Christina  Ros- 
setti, 235 

Sharp,  William,  3,  210,  214 

Shelley,  1 1 

Shields,  Frederick,  214,  215 

Siddal,  Elizabeth  Eleanor,  69-92  ;  her 
tastes,  70  ;  her  appearance,  7 1  ;  her 
her  experiences  as  a  model  for  the  P.- 
R.-B.,  73  ;  her  engagement  to  Ros- 
setti, 73  ;  her  marriage,  74  ;  Ruskin's 
kindness  to,  84  ;  birth  of  her  child, 
89  ;  her  death,  89,  90  ;  the  Beata  Be- 
atrix, painted  from  her,  9-91,  107, 
126 

Sing-Song,  by  Christina  Rossetti,  266, 
268 

Sir  Galahad,   Rossetti's  illustration  to, 

Sir  Hugh  the  Heron,  early  ballad  by 
Rossetti,  118 

Sister  Helen,  poem,  129,  131,  312, 
205 

Sketch  from  Nature,  A,  poem  by  John 
Lucas  Tupper,  60 

Slave,  The,  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's  first 
poem,  1 1 

Sonnets  for  Pictures,  56 

Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese,  Mrs. 
Browning's,  235-265 

Soothsay,  poem,  219 

Southwell,  233 

Speaking  Likenesses,  prose  stories  by 
Christina  Rossetti,  266 

Sphinx,  The,  picture,  193,  209 

Stanhope,  Spencer,  103 

Stephens,  F.  G.,  32,  33,  42,  66,  93,  103, 
164,  169 

Stillman,  Wm.  J.,  on  Pre-Raphaelitism, 
44-46 ;  on  Rossetti's  chloral  habit, 

'53-'55 

Stillman,  Mrs.  W.  J.,  105,  181 
Stratton  Water,  poem,  129 
Sturgis,  Russell,  43 
Sumner,  Mrs.,  196 
Sunset  Wings,  poem,  185 
Swinburne,  A.  C,  64,  71,  89,  112,  127, 

137,  '44 


310 


Unfcey. 


Tennyson,  Alfred,  54  ;  illustrations  to  his 
poems,  97,-  98 

Three  Enemies,  The,  poem  by  Christina 
Rossetti,  260 

Titian,  55,  112 

Torrington  Square,  last  home  of  Chris- 
tina Rossetti,  245 

Trowan  Crieff,  Rossetti  at,  158 

Troy  Town,  poem,  129 

Tudor  House,  Rossetti's  home,   141-150 

Tupper,  G.  F.,  59 

Tupper,  J.  L.,  66,  68 

Turner,  J.  L.  W.,  51 

Twilight  Night,  poem  by  Christina  Ros- 
setti, 235 


U 


Uphill,  poem  by  Christina  Rossetti,  260 


Vale  of  St.  John,  Cumberland,  2 1 3 

Van  Eyck,  John,  55,  58 

Vasto,  home  of  Nicola  Rossetti,  i 

Vaughn,  Henry,  270 

Venus  Astarte,  picture,  192,  193 


Venus  Verticordia,  picture,  32,  172 
Vila,  Nuova,   Dante's  64,  121,  123-126 

W 

Water -Willow,  The,  picture,    104,  183 
Watts-Dunton,   Theodore,    11,   14,  77, 

129,    143,    147,    149,    160,    161,  177, 

192,   196,   197,   206,  207,  214,  219, 

220,  233,  238,  244,  273 
Webb,  Philip,  109,  147,  188 
Whistler,  J.  McNeill,  28,  32,  145 
White  Ship,  The,  poem,  206 
Who  Shall  Deliver  Me?      Poem  by 

Christina  Rossetti,  275 
Whole  Head  is  Sick  and  the  Whole 

Heart  Faint,  The,  poem  by  Christina 

Rossetti,  242 
Wight,  P.  B.,  47,  49 
Wilding,  Alexa,  165,  186 
Wood-Spurge,  The,  poem,  191 
Woodward,  Benjamin,  102 
Woolner,  Thomas,  33,  58,  59,  67,  158 
Wordsworth,  William,  85,  200,  227 
Working-Men's  College,  89 
World's  Worth,  see  Pax  Vobis 


Zoological  Gardens,  16 


garland 


Some  Colonial  Homesteads 

And   Their   Stories.      With    86    illustrations.       8°,    gilt 
top .     $3.00 


Contents:     Brandon,  Westover,  Shirley,  Marshall   House,  Clive- 


tas),  Jamestown,  and  Williamsburg. 


More  Colonial  Homesteads 

And  Their  Stories.  With  81  illustrations.  8°,  gilt 
top  .  .  .  .  .  ...  .  $3.00 

Contents:  Johnson  Hall,  Johnstown,  N.  Y.  ;  La  Chaumiere  Du 
Prairie,  near  Lexington,  Kentucky  ;  Morven,  the  Stockton  Homestead, 
Princeton,  New  Jersey;  Scotia,  the  Glen-Sanders  House,  Schnectady, 
New  York  ;  Two  Schuyler  Homesteads,  Albany,  New  York  ,  Doughore- 
gan  Manor,  the  Carroll  Homestead,  Maryland:  The  Ridgely  House, 
Dover,  Delaware;  Other  "Old  Dover"  Stories  and  Houses;  Belmont 
Hall,  near  Smyrna,  Deleware ;  Langdon  and  Wentworth  Homes,  in 
Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire. 

Where  Ghosts  Walk 

The  Haunts  of  Familiar  Characters  in  History  and 
Literature.  With  33  illustrations.  8°,  gilt  top,  $2.50 

"  In  this  volume  fascinating  pictures  are  thrown  upon  the 
screen  so  rapidly  that  we  have  not  time  to  have  done  with  our  ad- 
miration for  one  before  the  next  one  is  encountered.  .  .  .  Travel 
of  this  kind  does  not  weary.  It  fascinates." — New  York  Times. 

Literary  Hearthstones 

Studies  of  the  Home  Life  of  Certain  Writers  and  Think- 
ers. Put  up  in  sets  of  two  volumes  each,  in  boxes. 
Fully  illustrated.  16°.  Price  per  volume  .  $1.50 
Two  volumes  in  a  box,  per  set  .  .  .  $3.00 
The  first  issues  are  : 

CHARLOTTE  BRONTE.    WILLIAM  COWPER. 
HANNAH  MORE.  JOHN  KNOX. 

"The  writer  has  read  her  authorities  with  care,  and,  whenever 
it  has  been  practicable,  she  has  verified  by  personal  investigation 
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excellent  as  records  and  distinctly  readable.  Anecdotes  are  intro- 
duced with  tact ;  the  treatment  of  the  authors  is  sympathetic  and 
characterized  by  good  judgment." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 


Q.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  New  York  and  London 


BROWNING,    POET  AND   MAN 

A  Survey.  By  ELISABETH  LUTHER  GARY.  With  25  illustrations 
in  photogravure  and  some  other  illustrations.  Large  8°,  gilt 
top  (in  a  box) $3  75 

11  It  is  written  with  taste  and  judgment.  .  .  .  The  book  is  exactly  what  it  ought 
to  be,  and  will  lead  many  to  an  appreciation  of  Browning  who  have  hitherto 
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of  Browning  should  possess,  being  worthy  in  every  way  of  the  poet." — Chicago 
Evening  Post. 

TENNYSON 

His  Homes,  His  Friends,  and  His  Work.  By  ELISABETH  LUTHER 
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box) $3  75 

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beautiful  volume  as  very  satisfactory.  The  text  is  clear,  terse,  and  intelligent,  and 
the  matter  admirably  arranged,  while  the  mechanical  work  is  faultless,  with  art 
work  especially  marked  for  excellence." — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

THE   ROSSETTIS  :    DANTE   GABRIEL  AND  CHRISTINA 

By  ELISABETH  LUTHER  GARY.  With  27  illustrations  in  photogra- 
vure and  some  other  illustrations.  Large  8°,  gilt  top  (in  a 
box) $3  75 

"  The  story  of  this  life  has  been  told  by  Mr.  Hall  Caine,  Mr.  William  Sharp,  Mr. 
Watts-Dunton  and  Mr.  William  Rossetti,  his  brother,  but  never  quite  so  well  as  by 
Miss  Gary,  who,  thoroughly  conversant  with  all  the  materials  which  their  writings 
furnish,  has  turned  it  to  better  advantage  than  they  were  capable  of  from  their  per- 
sonal relation  to  its  perplexing  subject." — Mail  and  Express 

PETRARCH 

The  First  Modern  Scholar  and  Man  of  Letters.  A  Selection  from 
his  Correspondence  with  Boccaccio  and  other  Friends.  De- 
signed to  illustrate  the  Beginnings  of  the  Renaissance. 
Translated  from  the  original  Latin  together  with  Historical 
Introductions  and  Notes,  by  JAMES  HARVEY  ROBINSON,  Pro- 
fessor of  History  in  Columbia  University,  with  the  Collabor- 
ation of  HENRY  WINCHESTER  ROLFE,  sometime  Professor  of 
Latin  in  Swarthmore  College.  Illustrated.  8°  .  $2  oo 

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.  .  .  The  book  is  a  work  of  sound  scholarship,  destined  to  be  of  practical  service  to 
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general  reader." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


